The state will roll out consent-based Aadhaar linking of landowners in the 7/12 extracts from the end of this month, officials from the state settlement commissioner’s office said. The proposal has been pending for clearance for over a year.
The initiative aligns with Central govt’s launch of farmer IDs for rural land parcels. “With the Digital Public Infrastructure for Agriculture (Agristack) scheme being implemented by Central govt to digitise agriculture, state govts are conducting a campaign to create a farmer registry and issue farmer IDs.
As these farmer IDs are created for benefits such as PM-Kisan, crop insurance, and other schemes, at the same time the option will be given to them for voluntary linking of Aadhaar with their land records,” explained the official.The state director of the revenue IT section at the settlement commissioner’s office, Sarita Narke, told TOI, “The purely voluntary process will commence this month itself. With farmer IDs already created, we will start by giving this option for rural land parcels, followed by urban ones. It will be highly beneficial to eradicate identification issues for sensitive data like landholding completely.”
Central govt officials said that proposals from Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat were given the push. The process will begin in these states before the financial year ends. “Consent-based Aadhaar linkage aims to ensure transparency and interoperability of land-related services across sectors, ensuring citizen-centric services and ease of living. Centre will be pushing aggressively for ULPIN or Bhu-Aadhaar in land governance and farmer IDs will also help in mapping these rural land parcels,” said a senior official in the know.
Officials said 13 states have commenced seeding of Aadhaar to help identify landholdings of an individual in different states or locations with the Aadhaar number. The process will weed out benami (illegal) transactions and ensure that beneficiaries get benefits under Central schemes. “It is voluntary and linking will help for any kind of verification of land parcels,” said another official.
Two years ago, the state had rolled out the Unique Land Parcel Identification Number (ULPIN) or Bhu-Aadhaar — an alphanumeric number —to identify every surveyed land parcel. There are 2.62 crore 7/12 extracts or record of rights in rural areas and over 81 lakh in city areas in Maharashtra.
