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.