A major error has surfaced during the ongoing land survey in Bihar, where the government is digitizing land records. In Ara district, the digital crop survey has mistakenly marked the location of 45,000 plots thousands of kilometers away in the Indian Ocean. This error has caused panic among landowners, with a majority of the affected being farmers. The issue has been traced to inaccuracies in the DCS app used by the Agriculture Department.
The problem stems from technical glitches in latitude and longitude data. Due to this error, hundreds of acres of land in 14 blocks of Ara district are showing up as located 12,000 kilometers away in the Indian Ocean, near Sri Lanka. The issue came to light when a plot’s location was checked for verification, and the app indicated its position in the Indian Ocean instead of Ara.
Similarly, a plot in Tenduni village of Bichla Jungle Mahal Panchayat, Jagdishpur block, was also recorded in the Indian Ocean. Several other plots showed similar discrepancies during verification. Plots with incorrect latitude and longitude data could not be uploaded to the system.
The digital crop survey, which began on December 20, aims to collect scientific data on agricultural land to ensure that farmers receive the benefits of government schemes. However, this technical error has left 45,000 plot owners uncertain about their land records.