Bihar has become the first state in the country to introduce the concept of a dynamic map for villages which will get updated every time land ownership changes hands. The move is aimed at reducing legal disputes. According to the Bihar government, in just about a year since February 2021, the state has seen almost 37,000 cases of some land dispute or the other. The move towards dynamic maps is part of a series of steps taken by the state government to implement long-pending land reforms. The state Assembly has recently passed the Bihar Land Mutation Amendment Bill, 2021 that made the mutation of maps mandatory. “The Bill has got the Governor’s assent and it has been notified,” said Vivek Kumar Singh, Additional Chief Secretary, the Department of Revenue & Land Reforms, Bihar. “Bihar is the first state to introduce the concept of a dynamic map whereby all mutations will also mean not only textual mutation but also the mutation of the survey map,” Singh told The Indian Express. As such, every time a mutation takes place now, it will entail three changes — first, a change in the text; second, a change in the land parcel; and third, a modification of the survey map. “Earlier, only the textual records were mutated. There has been a felt need for making maps digitally dynamic,” he said. Singh assures that thanks to the dynamic map, anyone can see the updated status of the village map and figure out whether a concerned plot belongs to person X or person Y. While the system is in place, Singh informs that the official release will soon be done by the Chief Minister. “A special survey is in its final stage in 20 districts. Village by village, we are releasing the final publication and the record of right in maps,” he said. Explaining reasons for conducting a special survey, Singh said that the available Khesra maps (which have been digitized) were drawn over 100 years ago. Although these Khesra maps enjoyed legal sanctity, they didn’t reflect the existing ground realities. In large tracts of Bihar, Cadastral or Revisional surveys couldn’t be conducted for topographical or other reasons. He said that the special survey has been done across 20 districts using aerial photography. "The image accuracy is very high in aerial photography and with a 10-cm accuracy, small plots/features can be identified on the image," he said. Singh said that about 4,869 persons were specially recruited for the special survey in 2020 and online training was given to them during the Covid period. According to Singh, over 22,000 processed maps received from aerial agencies and 5,127 villages are in advanced stages of Special Survey.
