Centre to ask states to adopt GIS-based property registration, replace sketch maps
A deeper structural concern is the absence of proper ownership documents for a significant share of urban residents, Manoj Joshi, secretary at the department of land records, said.
The Centre will soon issue a set of instructions to states for a major overhaul of India’s urban property registration system, replacing rough, hand-drawn sketches attached to deeds with precise latitude–longitude coordinates, ensuring every transaction can be linked to a mapped parcel.
“Ultimately, every transaction must be visible on GIS (Geographic Information System),” Manoj Joshi, secretary at the department of land records, said on Wednesday.
Joshi said the current property registration setup functions like a “black box” where digital paperwork still lands in files without connecting to any spatial database at the National Symposium on NAKSHA (National Geospatial Knowledge-based Land Survey of Urban Habitations). Linking registrations directly to GIS, will bring transparency, reduce disputes and standardise how property boundaries are recorded, he said.
A deeper structural concern, Joshi said, is the absence of proper ownership documents for a significant share of urban residents. “Even in stronger administrative states such as Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, roughly half the surveyed property owners lacked fully admissible documents — registered sale deeds, inheritance papers or entries in the Record of Rights. In unauthorised colonies, including in major cities, registrations remain impossible because layouts lack formal approval, leaving residents with weak or unusable paperwork,” he said.
The NAKSHA programme was first mooted in the Union budget 2024-25 on July 23, 2024, with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announcing GIS mapping for urban land records digitisation and an IT-based system for property administration and tax management. Currently the phase 2 of a pilot programme involving 157 small urban centres of area less than 35 sq km and population less than 2,00,000.
Joshi also flagged a persistent challenge across states, particularly the slow procurement of survey equipment such as rovers. He argued that investing in rovers is more cost-effective than maintaining large teams of survey staff, urging states to adopt faster, streamlined purchase processes. The Centre, he said, will continue to support states financially, but technology infusion must accelerate.
Joshi said the software ecosystem for land surveys and records across the country needs to be modernised and standardised. “Many states rely on dated, non-user-friendly NIC platforms or makeshift systems built on proprietary and open-source tools,” he said.
He said government departments must develop a modern, layered GIS platform integrating ownership, building and agency data, supported initially by satellite maps with at least 30-cm accuracy until full resurvey maps arrive.
He also urged the GIS industry to guide the government more actively, saying officials often operate with “half or quarter knowledge” while the private sector hesitates to step beyond narrow commercial interests.
Land and property transactions, Joshi said, underpin a substantial share of India’s economic activity, making accurate documentation essential. Revenue departments, he added, must shift from focusing largely on court cases and government land to delivering services that help citizens transact securely and efficiently.
