Survey No. 10 in Levdora, a village in Tehsil Qazigund of Anantnag district, stands in the revenue record at 8 kanals and 11 marlas. Measured on the spot against the village Massavi, the original settlement map, it came to 7 kanals and 5 marlas. The field is short by 1 kanal and 6 marlas, and the paper has no way of knowing it.

I served as Patwari of Levdora for about two years, roughly a decade ago, and the disparity was no isolated case. 

Survey Nos. 32, 64 and 186 showed similar differences between the Record of Rights and the map, along with several other fields. 

These are professional observations from my tenure, with no comprehensive survey behind them, and they need testing against the original settlement documents and a proper technical survey before anyone names a cause. 

The dates still invite suspicion. 

Levdora’s settlement is about a century old, and some of these differences may date back to the original settlement work.

The two documents were meant to match. The Jammu and Kashmir Government’s own explanatory material describes the Massavi as the original settlement map and the Misal Haqiat as the record prepared during the settlement or its revision.

The map shows the layout of the fields. The record lists the landholders, their rights and the fields that make up their holdings.

When the area recorded in the RoR differs from a reliable survey of the actual boundaries, neither figure can simply be treated as correct. 

The difference could come from a clerical mistake, an error in the original........

© Kashmir Observer