Haryana’s Land Governance Reforms Applauded; Centre May Offer Project-Based Funding Support

Chandigarh – Union Secretary, Department of Land Resources, Sh. Manoj Joshi, praised Haryana’s progressive initiatives in land record modernization and indicated that the state could receive project-specific funding to further these efforts. This support is expected to significantly strengthen initiatives such as the Tatima Updation Project, undertaken by HARSAC, which focuses on the detailed sketching and mapping of land parcels which is a crucial step toward achieving transparent and accurate land records.

The Union Secretary was in Chandigarh to review the progress of key programmes, including the Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP), NAKSHA, the Inspector General of Registration (IGR) system, and the Capital Incentive Schemes.

While speaking in the meeting, Financial Commissioner Revenue and Disaster Management, Dr. Sumita Misra, highlighted that Haryana is making remarkable strides in transforming land governance. Through ambitious initiatives like the Haryana Large Scale Mapping Project (HaLSMP) and the Modern Revenue Record Rooms (MRRR) project, the state aims to safeguard essential land data from both natural and man-made disruptions. These reforms are expected to bring unprecedented clarity, transparency, and efficiency to rural and urban land management systems.

Dr. Misra informed that under the HaLSMP, high-resolution drone-based imaging is being used to map agricultural lands across every village. To date, the Survey of India (SoI) has successfully completed drone surveys across an expansive 38,406.36 sq. km. Additionally, DRIISHYA was assigned to survey 5,805.69 sq. km in restricted zones, completing 4,936.67 sq. km and handing over the data to SoI for processing. The remaining 789.22 sq. km could not be surveyed due to land being in Red Zone.

Dr. Misra further elaborated on the advanced feature extraction process. In urban areas, this crucial step has been completed for all 88 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), with the full dataset for 79 ULBs already transferred to their respective departments. For rural areas, the SoI has completed feature extraction for 41,024.26 sq. km, with the remaining areas expected to be finished by June 30, 2025.

A critical aspect of the project, Murabba stone observation, which is essential for identifying village boundaries, has been successfully completed in 6,910 villages, excluding certain hilly parts of Panchkula where such stones are not present. Furthermore, boundary-related discrepancies in 291 out of 440 villages have been resolved and submitted to the Survey of India for final processing, paving the way for definitive and accurate land records, Dr. Misra added.

She informed that the state government has invested nearly Rs. 84 crore in HaLSMP using state resources. These funds have been used for transfers to the Survey of India, vehicle hiring, procurement of high-tech equipment like rovers, and establishing robust IT infrastructure. An additional Rs. 180.54 crore has been sought from the Government of India for resurvey operations and procurement of 400 more rovers (Demarcation Machine), pending clearance of court litigations that delayed the Digital India Land Record Modernization Programme (DILRMP) funded resurvey process.

Parallel to HaLSMP, the Government launched the Modern Revenue Record Rooms (MRRR) project on December 25, 2019, with the goal of preserving centuries-old revenue records across all 22 districts. Records such as Jamabandis, Mutations, Parat Sarkar, Field Books, Mussavis, and Revenue Court Orders are being digitized, indexed, and securely stored.

As of now, approximately 39.80 crore pages have been scanned, with 39.57 crore pages uploaded to a central database accessible via the Web HALRIS portal. This monumental effort ensures that historical data is safeguarded against loss and made easily retrievable by the public, Dr Misra stated. Each district now boasts a state-of-the-art record room with modern infrastructure, including climate-controlled storage, advanced scanning equipment, and a public-facing front desk for grievance redressal and document requests. The project has undergone 3 level verification.