Digital land mapping faulty, will lead to conflict: Congress

Senior Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia on Wednesday alleged that the new digital mapping of agricultural land, done under the National Land Records Modernisation Programme, in all the 33 districts was “completely faulty and there are numerous errors, which will lead to the conflicts in the society”.

Senior Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia on Wednesday alleged that the new digital mapping of agricultural land, done under the National Land Records Modernisation Programme, in all the 33 districts was “completely faulty and there are numerous errors, which will lead to the conflicts in the society”. The government should discontinue this process and allow farmers to continue with old land records, he demanded, while addressing mediapersons here. Modhwadia said, “We accessed records of Jamnagar district and found that new digital records are full of numerous errors — most land maps are changed and mapping is not indicating the key landmark objects such as control pillar, roads, water stream, well and house boundary pillars.”

“This will lead to conflicts between neighbours and between brothers in the family. It will disturb the social fabric of the society in the state. We are demanding withdrawal of the new mapping and continuance with old survey records which was done by government surveyors physically 1960 and are proven authentic and reliable. We also demand setting up of an investigation panel under the chairmanship of sitting a Gujarat High Court judge,” Modhwadia said

Siddharth Patel, MLA from Dabhoi constituency in Vadodara, said “Congresswill carryout protests on July 10 at the offices of district collectors across the state against discrepancies in the new land mapping and also to spread awareness among the farmers.” In 2009, after conducting a pilot study in Jamnagar district, digital land mapping was done the Under National land Records Modernisation Programme across the state in which “digital global positioning system (DGPS)” and “electronic total station (ETS)” tool were used to map the agricultural land.