The Tripura land record map: where a Dag sits, no more

Start with where. The map's real gift is orientation: enter a mouza and a Dag and the plot appears in its setting, with its neighbours around it. That is enough to catch the surprises a buyer most needs to catch early, a Dag with no road to it, a Dag shaped nothing like the description, a Dag lying in a quite different part of the mouza than the seller implied. For placing a plot, nothing beats the map.

Now how much. The map draws a shape, but the number that matters, the area, is not the map's to give; it belongs to the khatian. The two must agree, because a single Dag cannot honestly be one outline on the screen and a different size in the record, and where the drawn shape and the recorded area pull apart the plot has a fault that has to be settled before any price is fixed. Read the map for the shape, but take the area from the khatian and hold the two together.

Then exactly where. The map's lines come from earlier surveys, merely digitised, and Tripura is still bringing its cadastral maps up to date, so the on-screen edge is an indication and not a measurement. A Dag that draws neatly still earns a visit; one with doubtful access or neighbours earns the revenue office and, if it matters, a measurement against the settlement map. And on ownership the map says nothing at all, which is the khatian's and the deed's work, so between screen, record and ground a Tripura plot can be placed and sized, while the screen alone settles only where it sits.

Reaching the shape takes a minute; sizing it from the khatian and walking the edge makes it reliable.

On eJami

Let the map answer where; let the khatian and the ground answer how much and exactly where.

Four map mistakes catch Tripura buyers who read the sketch as a survey.

The map earns its place by catching the spatial trouble the khatian keeps quiet about: the plot that turns out smaller than the pitch, the one sealed off without a road, the one sitting in a far corner of the mouza. Spotting them on the screen, and checking the outline against the khatian area, costs a fraction of what it costs to learn of the gap after money has moved. Its ceilings are the survey and the one question it answers. The lines place a plot without measuring it, the state is still updating its maps, and ownership is nowhere on the map, sitting instead in the khatian and the deed. Between the Jami map for where, the khatian for how much and for owners, the deed for title, and a walk with the revenue office for the exact edge, a Tripura plot can be placed with confidence; the screen by itself answers only where it sits.