A Standing Committee in its report in August 2026, informed Parliament that as of January this year, 99.8 per cent of record of rights had been computerised, 97.4 per cent of cadastral maps digitised, 95.7 per cent of sub-registrar offices computerised and 88.6 per cent of registration offices integrated with revenue offices. The Standing Committee on Rural Development and Panchayati Raj also noted that several key components remain pending across states such as modern record rooms, surveys and re-surveys and integration of textual land records with digitised (spatial) maps. The Committee recommended completion of these activities within a defined timeline and expediting the approval and operationalisation of Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme (DILRMP) launched in 2016. The latest data clearly show a major achievement in land administration reforms through usage of technology which was initially taken up in 1988 and moved forward with the National Land Records Modernisation Programme (NLRMP) in 2008 to digitise textual and spatial land records, modernise land registration and survey systems and establish modern record rooms before DILRMP came into existence.
While progress on digitisation of land records across India is laudable, this itself is not enough to sit on laurels that the current status of digitisation would resolve all land disputes in the country. India as a subcontinent of vast geographical area and diverse terrain has a perennial problem of land disputes. These arise mainly due to personal and inheritance reasons within families, communities and rapid urbanisation. Land disputes now figure prominently in public domain both at the Central and state levels due to forced or poorly compensated land acquisitions going hand in hand with the developmental and infrastructural projects – particularly concerning common property resources and tribal/forest lands. This results in locking or losing massive private, public and foreign investments in stalled or shelved projects. This issue has another aspect too. Unclear and disputed ownership prevents land owners from using land as formal collateral for securing bank loans. As almost 70 per cent of India lives in the countryside, it also dampens rural credit access and entrepreneurial activities in diverse fields apart from agriculture.
India operates largely on a system of presumptive rather than conclusive land titling. Land disputes account for almost 66 per cent of civil court cases in the country. About 25 per cent of all cases decided by the Supreme Court of India relate to land disputes. Civil court cases in India related to land often drag up to one to two decades and also drain public, private and foreign investors’ money without any further progress in stalled projects in the process. This delay discourages long-term private capital injection and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows. Studies done show that land-related disputes stall over 14 to 25 per cent of major industrial and infrastructural projects, threatening investments worth trillions. Hundreds of examples are available in the public domain as to how land disputes are locking investments and blocking unleashing full potential development aligning with modern day projects. Delayed execution of the Mumbai- Ahmedabad Bullet train project, late start of operations of the Delhi – Dehradun Expressway are two representative examples as to where the economic impact of land disputes can be felt even at a granular level, which is manifold bigger across the length and breadth of the country.
Land as a resource is fixed and permanent in nature and cannot be manufactured. Development activities are continuously causing stress to land and related disputes only aggravate this problem. The complex nature of land disputes cannot be fathomed with a single thread across India as land and land records are state subjects and details of land records are available with the respective states/union territories and land administration varies from state to state. As many subjects pertaining to land are both in state and concurrent lists of the Constitution, this results in multiplicity of original and active land laws to further complicate the land dispute scenario.
Digitisation definitely gives a major boost to update the records of rights and ownership of land. However, it is still a challenging task in areas under the Sixth Schedule in states like Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram due to community land ownership, customary practices and administration by autonomous district councils which also have been noted in the Standing Committee report. Auto-triggered mutation which refers to the faster process of updating land records following a sale, inheritance, partition or court order has so far been implemented only in 17 states. The work on implementing Modern Record Rooms facilitating systemic preservation, indexing, management and retrieval of land records at the Tehsil/Taluk levels is still comparatively lower and attained only 72.5 per cent completion. To prevent impersonation, unauthorised land transfers and fraud, it was suggested that all states should complete consent-based Aadhaar linkage and mobile number linkage. Automatic SMS and electronic alerts to register land owners whenever a transaction or mutation request is submitted may nip in the bud any possibility of further land dispute.
One more challenge to the already chaotic scene of land disputes may have to be tackled on war footing with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Imparting tech education to officials in the lower/middle tiers of Land Administration is required. This could help in a better understanding and scrutiny of past records in land disputes to remove falsely manufactured records and fake AI-generated judgements due to the long drawn civil nature of land related matters. Recently, the Supreme Court flagged an ‘undesirable incident’ involving the alleged use of AI-generated non-existent judgements in a compilation of cases submitted on behalf of the appellants.
To release the full potential of land as a productive resource, steps are required both at the judicial and executive levels to aggressively promote alternative mechanisms to resolve land disputes speedily. Lok Adalats, the court referred mediation, arbitration governed by the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, traditional grass-roots and community led dispute resolution systems through Panchayati Raj Institutions and decisions by village elders, state-level revenue authorities, Sub-Divisional Magistrates (SDMs), District Collectors, land tribunals handling agricultural land, land revenue, and tenancy disputes outside standard civil courts should be encouraged rigorously as they may contribute significantly in reducing civil litigation in courts and releasing locked capital and investments. This is essential in a scenario where land as a resource is limited in supply and more in demand.
The author is Assistant Professor (Economics & Trade Policy), IIFT, New Delhi.
