How to get FMB sketches and village maps in Puducherry (Pondicherry)

Puducherry is four regions that do not touch: Puducherry and Karaikal inside Tamil Nadu's geography, Mahé on the Kerala coast, and Yanam beside Andhra Pradesh. Each keeps its land records at its own taluk office, and each describes land the same way, by survey and subdivision number, on an FMB sketch and a village map. That shared pattern is why a Puducherry FMB looks so much like a Tamil Nadu one, and why searches for one so often land on the other's portal.

What you are actually asking for

FMB sketch

The Field Measurement Book sketch for one survey number: its surveyed shape, the length of each boundary line, and the subdivisions inside it. One sketch covers one number.

Village map

The map of a whole revenue village, drawn across several sheets, showing every survey number in relation to its neighbours. This is what shows where a plot sits.

Patta and Chitta

The revenue record of who holds the survey number and how it is classified. Not a map, but the source of the exact numbers every map request is keyed on.

Start with the current survey number

Before asking for any map, take the survey and subdivision number from the Patta, 45/2 rather than 'about forty-five'. If all you have is an old deed, check whether its number predates the re-survey. Older deeds in Puducherry and Karaikal, some from the French period, can name a number the current FMB no longer uses, and a request on the old number comes back with the wrong sheet or none at all. The taluk office holds the correlation between old and new numbers.

Getting the sheets

1. Note the region, taluk and revenue village exactly as the Patta spells them. In Puducherry region that is one of Puducherry, Ozhukarai, Villianur or Bahour taluks; in Karaikal, Karaikal or Thirunallar.
2. Ask the taluk office, or the Survey and Land Records department, for the FMB sketch of each survey number you hold. A plot of three numbers is three sketches.
3. Ask for the village map sheets your numbers fall on, all of them, not just the first. The boundary you care about is often on the next sheet.
4. Check each sheet before you leave: the village name, the survey number, and that the edges are legible. The edge is what you will line up later.

Mahé and Yanam

Mahé and Yanam are each a single taluk, so there is one office to ask and fewer sheets to a village. The survey pattern is the same; what differs is only that the office is far from Puducherry town, so it is worth confirming what they can send before travelling.

Joining the sheets you end up with

Almost nobody ends up with one sheet. A holding across several survey numbers is several FMB sketches; a plot near a village-map sheet edge needs both sheets; land on a village boundary needs sheets from both villages. Joining them means lining up the boundaries they share so the lines that cross the join actually continue. On a canvas that lets you drag, rotate and scale each sheet it takes minutes, and the result is one continuous map to print or send to a buyer, a bank or an advocate.