Pilot programme for resurvey of lands exposes discrepancies in ownership

NELLORE: Teams involved in the re-survey of government and Patta lands on a pilot basis in one each selected village at all the 51 revenue divisions across AP have found large-scale discrepancies about the name of the Pattadar in revenue records as against the person cultivating/possessing the land.

To overcome this discrepancy, the survey wing in association with the revenue department is carrying out ‘ground trothing’ and ‘ground validation’ exercises to update the records after verifying the evidence available with the persons who are claiming the rights over the lands.

An opportunity is being given to the farmers to appeal against the decision of the revenue and survey teams over the ownership of the land within three years, but the records cannot be modified thereafter.

The re-survey of land covers all the government lands and Patta lands except for forest lands.

Incidentally, the re-survey of the land should be done once every 70 years. But the last survey was carried out 81 years ago in 1939, sources in the Survey wing said.

Joint collector (revenue) Harendhira Prasad said they are going to give land parcel numbers instead of survey numbers after measuring the land both electronically and physically; and the survey number will be used for correlation.

Drones are being used for survey of the land and to create ortho- rectified images for each piece of land, which are again examined at the field level by the survey teams before fixing the border stones. The lands are classified based on their nature (wet or dry).

Purification of Land Records (POLR) is also being carried out simultaneously by verifying records in the Webland as well as original revenue records such as Adangal & RSR (resurvey and resettlement register).

Harendhira Prasad said the dotted lands issues will be automatically resolved once the purification of records is completed in all the villages in the district in the next phase.

He expressed confidence in allotting land parcel numbers and new Patta Passbooks to the farmers before the end of this month in the five villages taken up for re-survey under the pilot programme.

Meanwhile, for the mega exercise, the Survey department has hired 477 graduates in civil engineering out of the required 665 in SPSR Nellore district and would fill the balance posts shortly.

Besides using modern gadgets and advanced QGIS and WebGIS software, the Survey department is also following the traditional method of survey using chains and cross-staff to ensure accuracy in the gigantic task.

Assistant director of survey, Hanuman Prasad, said the department is also using Electronic Total Station (an electronic/optical instrument used for surveying and building construction) to measure both vertical and horizontal angles and slope distance from up to 2.5km in one go.