Assam Government Introduces Geotagging for Land Settlement under Mission Basundhara 2.0

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: To ensure that no applicant resorts to any kind of deceit while applying for land settlement under Mission Basundhara 2.0, and that mandals do not submit erroneous reports, the government has introduced the system of geotagging under Mission Basundhara 2.0, for the first time in Assam,

Geotagging is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as a geotagged photograph or video, websites, SMS messages, QR Codes or RSS feeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. This data usually consists of latitude and longitude coordinates, though they can also include altitude, bearing, distance, accuracy data, and place names, and perhaps a time stamp. Geotagging helps users find a wide variety of location-specific information from a device.

Under Mission Basundhara 2.0, the mandal will have to make a field visit to the plot of land for which land settlement has been applied for, click a photograh with the applicant family and then geotag that plot of land through an app developed by the Revenue and Disaster Management Department.

Sources said that under Mission Basundhara 2.0, the government’s emphasis is not on the number of applicants who will be given land settlement rights but on giving land rights to genuine people. The whole process will be indigenous people-friendly. A total of 13,39,499 applications for land settlement have been received by the government and the process of geotagging is expected to be completed by May 31, 2023. Sources added that geotagging has been done against 4,70,000 applications received.

There is a Subdivision Land Advisory Committee (SDLAC) in every subdivision. This Committee will examine the land settlement applications received and decide which claims are genuine. The Committee will then submit its report to the Department of Revenue and Disaster Management. The SDLAC will also decide how to dispose of all the applicants received under Mission Basundhara 2.0. So far, out of the 13,39,499 applications received, 818 have been rejected. According to sources, most of these applications have been rejected because the applicants used someone else’s Aadhaar card. The highest number of applications – 10,47,949– have been received for settlement of land issues of khas land.

After the success of Mission Basundhara, last year Mission Basundhara was launched for settlement of land issues of indigenous people of the State. The services provided under Mission Basundhara 2.0 are the settlement of government khas and ceiling surplus land; conferring ownership rights to occupancy tenants; settlement of transferred annual patta land; settlement of VGR/PGR land; settlement of land for indigenous special cultivators (tea, coffee, rubber etc.); settlement of hereditary land of tribal communities, among others.

The State Government intends to dispose off all applications received under Mission Basundhara 2.0 by November 14, 2023.

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