Glossary

Andaman and Nicobar Islands land & survey glossary

Plain-language meanings for the words on your RoR / Patta and village / cadastral sketch, what each one is, and which of them you actually need before joining your sheets.

Village map / cadastral sketch

The survey map of a revenue village, showing each survey number with its boundaries. It is drawn across several sheets, so a holding near a sheet edge needs more than one sheet joined to be seen whole. Forest land and tribal reserves have no such sheet.

Survey number

The number that identifies a parcel in a revenue village. The Record of Rights, the Patta and the village map are all keyed on it, and it is unique only within its village.

Revenue village

The unit the land records are kept in. Not every settlement in the islands is a revenue village, and much land lies outside any of them as forest or tribal reserve. Take the spelling from the Record of Rights.

Record of RightsRoR

The revenue record for a survey number: who holds it, its area and how the land is classified. It records who holds the land in the revenue record; title comes from the documents behind it.

Patta

The document issued to a holder recording their holding of a survey number. Much settled land in the islands was allotted by the Administration, so the Patta and the allotment papers behind it are often where a title enquiry starts.

Mutation

The change to the Record of Rights that records a transfer by inheritance, gift, partition or sale. Until it is made, the record still names the previous holder.

Land Revenue and Land Reforms Regulation

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands Land Revenue and Land Reforms Regulation, the law under which the islands' revenue record is kept. What it permits on a specific parcel is a question for the revenue office and an advocate.

Tribal reserve

Land set aside for the islands' indigenous communities under the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, covering much of the Nicobar district and several areas of the Andamans. It is held under the communities' own customs, outsiders cannot simply acquire it or enter it, and it has no revenue cadastre.

Tehsil

The revenue unit below the district. The islands have three districts with three tehsils each, and the tehsil office is where map and record requests usually go.

Tehsildar

The head of a tehsil's revenue office, responsible for its land records, mutations and certified copies.

Patwari

The village-level revenue official who keeps the record and map for a group of revenue villages, and usually the first person to ask which sheet a survey number is on.

Deputy CommissionerDC

The head of a district's administration, including its revenue office. The office above the tehsils for land questions they cannot settle.

The full Andaman and Nicobar Islands guide · Tamil Nadu's glossary