Decades-old agricultural document outlives its utility in metro

The property registration form 7/12, I surmise, recorded agricultural land holdings on Salsette Island (the island on which Mumbai, Mira-Bhayander and part of Thane lie), which over time after 1914 were converted into urban settlements under the Salsette Town Planning Scheme, said Mariam Dossal, city historian and author of the book ‘Theatre of Conflict, City of Hope’.
“It may be that the ‘Saat Baara’ was also used to record holdings on parts of coconut plantations and rice fields that existed in Mahim, Matunga, Dadar and Worli and the northern sections of Bombay island, which existed well into the mid-twentieth century. It is worth investigating further,” the historian said. “The document must tally with the city survey number of the land. If there are discrepancies, then we cannot scrap the 7/12 extract,” suburban collector Sachin Kurve told TOI.

Retired bureaucrat Dev Mehta, who was once Mumbai metropolitan commissioner, said the 7/12 extract is like “God” for landowners. “In popular Marathi Lavani songs, the protagonist asks the man to prove if he is rich or poor by showing his Saat Baara,” said Mehta. In the 1970s, Mehta said, the state introduced the ‘Khate Pustika’, a substitute land record document for the 7/12. “But the Saat Baara was not abolished then.
It is pointless to have both a property card and the 7/12 extract in urban areas. Scrapping 7/12 is a good move by the government.” IAS officer Shekhar Gaikwad, who has done extensive studies on land records, said it was FGH Anderson (commissioner of settlements and land records), who streamlined and created a system to collect land revenue in villages in Maharashtra.
“Form 7 pertains to the title of the property and form 12 contains details of the cultivation and crops grown on the land,” he explained. “Saat Baara has become an inseparable part of the life of an agriculturalist. Any mention of 7/ 12 creates an emotion of scare as well as suspicion in the minds of farmers mainly because of his attachment to the land. Therefore, 7/12 is rightly called a mirror of land.”