President Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday presented the Bhoomi Samman awards to nine state secretaries and 68 district collectors for their achievements in the implementation of the Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme.
Congratulating those who have achieved targets under the DILRMP, President Murmu said digitisation of land records will play an important role in development of rural areas.
"Digitisation increases transparency. This mission of digitising land records will have a positive impact on rural development," she said.
"Acceleration of rural development is essential for the overall development of the country. For the development of rural areas, modernisation of land records is a basic requirement as the livelihood of most of the rural population is dependent on land resources.
"A comprehensive integrated land management system is of utmost importance for the overall development of rural areas," she said.
She also said the unique land parcel identification number being provided could be useful like Aadhaar card and it would help people in making proper use of the lands as well in implementing new welfare schemes.
"Linking of e-courts with land records and registration data-base would have many benefits. The transparency that is coming from digitization would curb unethical and illegal activities related to land," she said.
The president said that many people in rural areas have land records in the name of their forefathers and are not able to get registrations done due to lack of information, resources or due to disputes. The president urged the government to look into such cases.
The Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP) attempts to build upon the commonalities that exist in the arena of land records in various states to develop an integrated land information management system across the country.
The awards were given to nine state secretaries and 68 district collectors for achieving saturation of the core components of DILRMP.
Union Minister of State for Panchayati Raj Kapil Moreshwar Patil said digitisation of land records have enabled people to get loans against their property, which was earlier not easily available.
Union Minister of State for Rural Development Faggan Singh Kulaste said that digitisation of more than 94 per cent of land records have been achieved already and the rest will be completed before the deadline of March 31, 2024.
According to the Rural Development Ministry, digitisation process of land records and registration will help mitigate the huge pendency of court cases involving land disputes, cutting down the loss to the country's economy due to projects being stalled over such litigations.
It is expected to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of various services and benefits of the programmes of central and state departments related to agriculture and farmer welfare, chemical and fertilizer, public distribution system (PDS), panchayati raj and financial institutions.