At a glance
- Land disputes are estimated to account for two-thirds of all pending civil cases in India.
- The Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP) aims to tackle the persistent challenges of inaccurate land data, missing records, land ownership disputes, and property frauds.
- The programme is India's most comprehensive attempt to fix a land records system that has been dispute-prone for a long time.
Who really owns a piece of land in India? For most of the country's history, the answer has depended not on a guaranteed title, but on a presumption of ownership pieced together from past transactions. This is a system whose flaws stretch back to the Mughal Empire and British Raj.
It's no secret that unclear ownership, land disputes, and tax collection challenges all contribute to a black market for land transactions, and obstruction in infrastructure development.
Land disputes are estimated to make up two-thirds of all pending civil cases in India, according to a 2007 World Bank study. Additionally, it takes around 20 years for land dispute cases to be cleared, and 5 million land revenue-related cases are still pending (as of 2020). Small and marginal farmers, who account for 86% of all operational farm holdings in India, face the highest impact as they may not hold formal land titles and do not get access to institutionalised credit.
To tackle this, the Indian government launched the National Land Records Modernization Programme (NLRMP) under the central sector and renamed it as Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP) in 2016. The goal is to attain end-to-end computerisation of the land registration process and digitisation of land records across the country, promoting an Integrated Land Information Management System (ILIMS).
The building blocks of DILRMP
A comprehensive infographic illustrating the core digitisation components and enabling factors for the DILRMP land records modernisation programme in India.
Source: Ministry of Rural Development
One of the significant initiatives under DILRMP is the Unique Land Parcel Identification Number (ULPIN), also known as Bhu-Aadhar, a 14-digit alphanumeric number assigned to each land parcel. The code is a pan-India number based on the geo-coordinates of the land used for recording ownership details along with plot size and geolocation.
Using administrative data and spatial intelligence, GIS (Geographic Information System) ensures precise, GPS-tagged maps for each plot of land, which can be uniquely identified and positioned in space. GIS empowers the integration of cadastral, legal, and administrative data to be securely stored on government cloud servers, which can be controlled in real-time. This can then serve as the single source of truth for land governance.
It has been implemented in 29 states/union territories to ensure seamless land-related transactions, disentangle property disputes, and facilitate better disaster management efforts. Likewise, the National Generic Document Registration System (NGDRS) ensures a streamlined process for deed registration across the country, including document searches, entries, and online payments. Acclaimed as the "One-Nation One-Registration Software," 18 states/union territories have adopted it, and 12 states share their data with national portals.
The numbers behind the progress
- As of 7 May 2026, as per the Ministry of Rural Development DILRMP dashboard, approximately 99% of Records of Rights (RoR) have been computerised.