The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry is working on a law that would bring all urban land and building records in the national capital under a single Delhi Urban Lands and Immovable Property Records Authority headed by the Lieutenant Governor.
All notified urban areas within the geographical boundaries of the National Capital Territory of Delhi are proposed to be covered by the Authority. As per the Economic Survey of Delhi 2022-23, the National Capital Territory sprawls over 1,483 sq km, of which 1,114 sq km is designated as urban, and the rest as rural.
Since land in Delhi is a central subject under Article 239AA of the Constitution, the proposed law will not fundamentally change who controls land policy in the capital.
Current situation
There is currently no urban land and buildings records law or system in Delhi.
Rural land records are maintained under the Delhi Land Reforms Act, 1954, and the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887. The 1954 Act does not, as per both the Act itself and subsequent court rulings, apply to urbanised villages in Delhi, or to land owned by a municipal corporation (MCD or NDMC) and the Cantonment Board, or land acquired for public purposes. The records under the 1887 and 1954 laws contain details such as khasra number or list of fields, and khatauni or list of cultivators, which only apply to agricultural land.
This situation is seen in several other states as well, and some like Gujarat and Maharashtra have already created a separate system for urban land records.
Also, multiple agencies are responsible for land in Delhi. For instance, the Revenue Department of the Delhi government maintains the Record of Rights (RoR), a legal document that contains information about the ownership of land parcels in villages.
Property tax records are maintained by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) for their areas.
The Land & Development Office (L&DO) under the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has land records dating back to the acquisition of lands for the establishment of New Delhi by the British in 1911. Over the years, the L&DO has leased land for various purposes, but it does not maintain records once leasehold land is converted to freehold.
The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has records for the land acquired by it for development.
The proposal
According to MoHUA’s draft Bill, the Delhi Urban Land and Immovable Property Records Authority chaired by the Delhi LG will include officials from the DDA, MCD, NDMC, Delhi Cantonment Board, the L&DO and Revenue Department as members. The Authority will frame the guidelines for creating and maintaining urban land records.
The Authority will appoint officers to survey all urban areas, including land, buildings, apartments, etc. It will have the power to carry out inquiries into property rights, and impose penalties for concealment of information.
The proposed Bill will have provisions for an urban RoR that have the names of all holders, occupants (other than tenants), owners, or mortgagees of the land, or assignees of the rent revenue from it.
The proposed RoR will also have the names of all government lessees or tenants, along with the nature and extent of their interests and liabilities, if any, with respect to the land or immovable property.
The significance
Accurate and updated maps, and detailed and robust land records are essential for proper urban planning. The NITI Aayog’s September 2021 report, Urban Planning Capacity in India, found that accurate and usable maps for many major cities “do not exist with their functionaries or in the public domain”.
This, the report said, is a “major impediment in the planning processes as well as planning capacity”, because “the successful implementation of spatial plans depends to a great extent on how well they stay in sync with the land records”.
A policy brief on India’s urban land records prepared by the nonprofit Indian Institute of Human Settlements (IIHS) in 2023 said the RoR in some states are either non-existent or not updated after areas are declared urbanised because Revenue Departments believe that maintaining urban records is the responsibility of the municipality or urban development authority.
“…The Revenue Department of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi ceases to maintain land records for villages once they are formally brought into the urban fold. A similar practice is followed in states such as Karnataka, Rajasthan and UP,” it said.
In another policy brief on Delhi’s urban land records in 2019, IIHS had argued that having such records would help in taxation and dispute resolution.
“With no single custodian for the NCT of Delhi, there are no uniform records across various governance and planning typologies; varying formats are followed within as well as across institutions, making the process of property title search extremely cumbersome,” the 2019 paper said.
The proposed Bill is aligned with the BJP’s Lok Sabha election promise on the “creation of Digital Urban Land Records System”, sources in the government said.
There is currently no urban land and buildings records law or system in Delhi.
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