More than 61.68 lakh land records in Odisha have not yet been taken up for survey, even after the state government’s six-month deadline expired. The backlog is not simply an administrative statistic: land records determine how ownership is recognised, how beneficiaries are identified and how citizens access a range of revenue services. In and around fast-growing Bhubaneswar, the delay also places a large number of property records inside a wider urban system that depends on accurate, accessible and updated land information.
The figures reported by Odisha Post show a substantial gap between the scale of the government’s exercise and its implementation. More than 1.72 crore land records across 318 tehsils were initially identified for survey. Around 91 lakh records have been surveyed and updated, while more than 19 lakh remain under survey. The largest unresolved category, however, is the 61.68 lakh records that officials have not yet taken up.
That distinction matters. A record that is under survey is at least moving through the administrative process. A record that has not been taken up remains outside the active correction and verification exercise. For landholders, the difference can translate into a longer wait before an ownership entry is checked, corrected or updated. The supplied report does not establish how many citizens are directly affected by each record, but the scale of the pending workload indicates that the issue extends well beyond isolated cases.
The exercise is linked to the correction of Column-2, or Khata No. 2, entries in the Record of Rights. In February, the state government directed all districts to handle these cases on a mission-mode basis. The stated objective was to identify rightful beneficiaries and ensure that land records accurately reflected ownership. The exercise therefore combines a records-management task with a rights-recognition function: officials must examine existing entries, identify the relevant beneficiaries and update the official record.
This is where the backlog becomes an institutional problem rather than only a delay in paperwork. A land record is produced and maintained through a chain of administrative actions at the district and tehsil levels. The department may set targets and review progress, but the actual movement of individual cases depends on the officials and offices handling them. The report attributes the incomplete work to a reported lack of commitment among officials, particularly at the tehsil level, and quotes a senior Revenue department officer on the issue.
The state government has also attempted to improve public access to revenue administration. Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Suresh Pujari recently launched the Ama Sathi app to support the prompt hearing of public grievances and resolution of problems. The minister and senior department officials, including Additional Chief Secretary Arabinda Kumar Padhee, have been regularly reviewing revenue-service delivery.
The coexistence of a grievance app and a large unresolved survey backlog illustrates the two different layers of administrative reform. A digital interface can make it easier for citizens to submit or track complaints, but it cannot by itself complete the underlying verification of land records. If the record remains unexamined at the tehsil level, faster grievance registration may improve visibility without immediately resolving the substantive problem. The supplied report does not provide data on the app’s performance or the number of cases handled through it, so its impact cannot yet be assessed from the available evidence.
The Khordha figures bring the problem closer to the state capital. The district has more than 10,82,940 land records identified for survey. Within Bhubaneswar, around 3,37,700 records were identified. About 1,21,000 have been updated and 7,500 remain under survey, while more than two lakh have not yet been taken up by officials.
These numbers show that the backlog is not confined to more remote or less urbanised areas. Bhubaneswar is a major centre of construction, housing, public investment and administrative activity, and its land records are part of the foundation on which these processes operate. The available report does not link individual pending records to specific building projects, ownership disputes or approvals. It does, however, establish that a large volume of records in the capital region remains outside the survey process.
Across Khordha’s tehsils, the pending workload varies considerably. More than 35,000 records in Balianta, 23,772 in Balipatna, 16,304 in Banapur, 14,629 in Begunia, 22,609 in Bolagarh, 8,064 in Chilika, 69,200 in Jatani, 41,639 in Khordha and 24,543 in Tangi still await survey. Jatani has the largest pending figure among the tehsils listed, followed by Khordha and Balianta.
The variation is significant for administration because it means that a single statewide completion deadline masks different workloads on the ground. Tehsils do not begin with identical record volumes, and their pending cases are not evenly distributed. A statewide target can therefore show overall progress while leaving specific offices with much heavier unresolved workloads. The report does not provide staffing levels, case complexity or office-wise timelines, so it is not possible to determine from the available material whether the differences result from capacity, workload, prioritisation or other factors.
The data also exposes a communication challenge. The government has set a deadline and reviewed implementation, but the exercise remains incomplete after that deadline. For citizens, the critical information is not only that a survey is taking place, but whether a particular record has been taken up, whether verification is pending, what correction is required and when the updated Record of Rights will be available. The source material does not state whether residents have access to a uniform public tracking system for these stages.
This gap between policy direction and case-level visibility is common to large administrative exercises. A mission-mode instruction can establish urgency, yet implementation still depends on converting a broad order into a manageable workflow: identifying cases, assigning responsibility, examining documents, recording decisions and updating the official database. The Odisha figures suggest that the first stage remains incomplete for a majority-sized portion of the identified workload, although the supplied article does not provide a percentage breakdown or a detailed stage-wise audit.
For urban governance, land records are more than a revenue department concern. They support the formal recognition of property interests and influence how land can be transferred, developed or used in administrative processes. In expanding urban regions, unclear or outdated records can create friction for households, institutions and authorities. The present report does not claim that every pending record has caused a dispute or blocked development, and those consequences should not be assumed. The evidence does establish that the information base needed for reliable land administration remains incomplete across a very large number of cases.
The institutional responsibility is clear in the material supplied. The Revenue and Disaster Management Department has issued the directions, senior officials are reviewing delivery, district administrations are responsible for implementation, and tehsil-level officials are central to taking up and processing the records. The expiry of the deadline raises a basic administrative question: how will the government move from review and public grievance access to measurable completion of the pending cases?
That question cannot be answered by the available figures alone. The report does not provide a revised completion deadline, a district-wise recovery plan, additional staffing measures, disciplinary action or a public dashboard showing progress after the original deadline. It also does not state how many of the 91 lakh updated records involved disputed or corrected ownership entries, as opposed to records processed without substantive changes. These are important gaps in assessing whether the exercise is improving accuracy or merely reducing the numerical backlog.
What the evidence confirms is narrower but still significant. Odisha began a large-scale exercise covering more than 1.72 crore land records across 318 tehsils. Around 91 lakh records have been surveyed and updated, more than 19 lakh are under survey and 61.68 lakh have not yet been taken up. The six-month deadline has expired, and the state’s own administrative machinery is continuing to review revenue-service delivery while a substantial workload remains pending.
The next test is whether the government can publish a credible, case-level implementation path for the unresolved records, particularly in high-growth areas such as Bhubaneswar and the wider Khordha district. Until that happens, the Ama Sathi app and senior-level reviews may improve access to the administration, but they cannot substitute for the field-level survey and record correction that the backlog still requires.
