Information Technology for Maintaining Land Records in India: An Operations Perspective

Recent developments in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have introduced a plethora of opportunities for development in every conceivable area. A weak land record system has been viewed as a systematic weakness. As a result, the Government of India started the centrally sponsored scheme of Computerization of Land Records (CoLR). The CoLR scheme involved three agencies: the National Informatics Centre (NIC); the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD); and the state government. NIC is responsible for upgrading the district centers with latest hardware, software, terminals and printers to expedite the work of data entry. The progress across the country has been highly skewed. Some of the states have made good progress, while others have lagged behind. As a result of this, overall human resources and infrastructure requirement for land management has reduced.