Glossary
Ladakh land & survey glossary
Plain-language meanings for the words on your Jamabandi / Fard and Shajra / cadastral map, what each one is, and which of them you actually need before joining your sheets.
12 terms
- Shajra
- The field map of a revenue village, showing every Khasra number and its boundaries. A village runs across several sheets, so a holding near a sheet edge is cut by the border, and those are the sheets people join.
- Musavi
- The scaled settlement map a village was surveyed onto. The Shajra sheets derive from it, and the revenue office works from it when a measurement is in doubt.
- Tatima
- A supplementary sketch drawn when a Khasra is divided, showing its new parts. If your field was partitioned, the Tatima shows it as it is now, where the older Shajra sheet still shows it whole.
- Khasra number
- The number of one field on the Shajra. Every revenue record in a Ladakh village is keyed on it: the Jamabandi, the Girdawari and the map. Use the current numbers from the Jamabandi, including split ones, for any map request.
- Kanal and Marla
- The units the J&K-pattern record uses for area. One Kanal is 20 Marla. Convert before you compare the Jamabandi with a deed or a plan in acres or square feet.
- Jamabandi
- The periodic record of rights for a village: the Khewat (ownership account), owners and cultivators, and each Khasra number with its area. It says who holds the land. The Shajra shows where that land is.
- Fard
- A certified copy of an entry in the Jamabandi, issued through the Patwari or the tehsil. It is the copy a bank, a court or a registration will ask for.
- Khasra Girdawari
- The Patwari's inspection record at harvest: what was sown on each Khasra and who was in possession. It is often relied on to show possession at a given time.
- Intiqal
- The mutation: the entry that records a transfer of land by sale, gift, inheritance or partition. Until it is attested, the Jamabandi still names the previous holder, whatever a sale deed says.
- Khalsa Sarkar
- Land recorded as belonging to the government. Land outside the cultivated village fields is often recorded this way, and it cannot be sold as a private holding.
- Patwari
- The village revenue official who keeps the Shajra and the Jamabandi for the villages of a Halqa, records the Girdawari and enters each Intiqal. The first person to ask for a sheet.
- Hill Development CouncilLAHDC
- The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, one each for Leh and Kargil. It is an elected council with a say in how government land in its district is used and allotted. It does not keep the Jamabandi; the Patwari and the tehsil do.