Punjab Land Revenue Terms Explained: A Plain-English Glossary for Land Buyers (2026)

Key takeaways

• The Jamabandi is the document that matters most. It is Punjab's Record of Rights, revised every five years, and a Fard is its certified copy. You can check it online at the Punjab land-records portal (jamabandi.punjab.gov.in).
• Ownership changes on paper only through an Intkal (mutation). Anyone who acquires land by sale, gift, mortgage or inheritance must report it to the Patwari. Failing to report within three months can attract a fine of up to five times the mutation fee.
• Know your units. 1 marla = 272.25 sq ft, 1 kanal = 20 marla = 5,445 sq ft, and 8 kanal = 1 acre. The size of a bigha varies by region, so always go by the kanal-marla or square-metre figure in the record.
• Read the remarks column (Kaifiyat) first. That is where mortgages, attachments, acquisitions and pending mutations show up.
• A field number like 3//21 means murabba (block) 3, killa (field) 21. A murabba is a 25-acre block.
• Entries in the Jamabandi are presumed true until proved otherwise. A wrong entry must be corrected through the revenue office or a court, not argued away at the time of sale.

Why these words matter before you buy land in Punjab

If you have ever held a Fard and felt lost, you are not alone. Punjab's land records still use words that came from Persian and Urdu revenue administration. The system of measuring land and recording crops goes back to Sher Shah Suri and was refined under Akbar by Raja Todar Mal, and the British kept much of that vocabulary when they wrote the Punjab Land Revenue Act in 1887. That Act still governs land records in Punjab today.

The words have survived. Most buyers simply have not been taught what they mean. That gap matters because a single entry — a mortgage noted in the remarks, a pending mutation, a share recorded as 1/4 instead of the whole — can change whether a deal is safe.

The problem is big enough that the Government of India's Department of Land Resources released a national Glossary of Revenue Terms in December 2025. It records how each state names the same ideas, such as a plot number, an ownership account or a land type.

This guide does the same job for Punjab, in plain English. We have grouped the terms the way you will meet them — first the documents, then the units, the people, the transactions and the legal rules — and explained what each means for you as a buyer, seller or landowner. For the full list of papers to collect before you buy, see our Property Document Checklist.

The documents that prove who owns land

Think of Punjab's land records as one main register supported by a set of maps and working books. The main register is the Jamabandi. The Patwari (village record-keeper) prepares it, a Revenue Officer attests it, and it is revised every five years. Two copies exist: one in the tehsil record room and one with the Patwari.

Under Section 31 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, a village's Record of Rights must include a statement of owners and tenants, a statement of village customs and a map. Every change in between two Jamabandis is first entered in the Patwari's register of mutations and reaches the Jamabandi only after a Revenue Officer sanctions it.

The main records

Maps and supporting books

Two maps sit behind the written record. The Aks Shajra (also called Shajra Kishtwar) is the Patwari's field map, traditionally drawn on cloth so it can be folded and carried without tearing. The Masavi is the detailed master map on thick paper, drawn to scale with roads, canals and the inhabited area marked. Field numbering on both runs from the north-west corner of the village to the south-east.

How to read a Jamabandi, column by column

According to the national Glossary of Revenue Terms, Punjab's Jamabandi is a 15-field record kept in Punjabi. The column meanings below follow the glossary's entry for Haryana, whose Jamabandi is kept under the same 1887 Act and uses the same headings.

In practice, read three things before anything else: the owner's share (is the seller selling more than he holds?), the Khatauni (is someone else cultivating?), and the Kaifiyat (is anything pending or charged against the land?).

Land measurement units in Punjab

Punjab's revenue records measure land in the karam–marla–kanal–acre system. Everything starts from one length: the karam, which is 5.5 feet (66 inches). A square karam, called a sarsahi, is 30.25 sq ft. Nine sarsahi make a marla, twenty marla make a kanal, and eight kanal make an acre — locally called a killa, laid out as 36 × 40 karam.

Standard area units

Two worked examples

A 1-kanal residential plot is 20 marla, which is 20 × 272.25 = 5,445 sq ft, or 605 sq yd. Developers often quote the same plot as "605 gaj".

A 2-acre farm is 2 × 8 = 16 kanal, or 320 marla. In square feet that is 2 × 43,560 = 87,120 sq ft. If a seller quotes "16 kanal" and the Jamabandi shows the same, the two agree.

Bigha and biswa: handle with care

Some older records and many sellers still talk in bigha. In the bigha–biswa system described in traditional revenue glossaries, a biswansi is the square of a 57.157-inch gattha (about 22.7 sq ft), 20 biswansi make a biswa (about 454 sq ft), and 20 biswa make a bigha (about 9,075 sq ft). On that scale an acre is 4 bigha 16 biswa.

The catch is that a bigha is not one fixed size. Across India it ranges from about 6,806 to 27,225 sq ft, and even the same glossary also describes a 40 × 40 karam field as 4 bigha. When a listing says "10 bigha", ask for the kanal-marla or square-metre figure from the Jamabandi before you discuss price.

Length units and survey tools

You will rarely need these, but they appear in older measurement records and demarcation reports.

Area terms you will see in records

Who's who in the revenue system

Most of your dealings will be with three people: the Patwari, who keeps the village records; the Kanungo, who checks the Patwari's work; and the Tehsildar or Naib Tehsildar, who sanctions mutations and hears revenue cases. Above them sits a chain of Revenue Officers set out in Section 6 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act.

Field and village officials

Revenue Officers and how appeals work

If a Revenue Officer passes an order you disagree with — on a mutation, a partition or a demarcation — you appeal one level up. The Act sets the time limits: 30 days to the Collector, 60 days to the Commissioner and 90 days to the Financial Commissioner (Section 14). You can also ask the same officer to review his own order within 90 days (Section 15).

Owners, tenants and village land

A revenue village is called a mauza, and its record distinguishes carefully between the person who owns land and the person who works it. That distinction matters because a tenant's rights can survive a sale.

The village

Owners and cultivators

Land types, irrigation and rent

The Kism Zamin (land type) entry tells you how a field is watered or whether it can be farmed at all. It affects value, and in some cases what you are allowed to do with the land.

Land type and irrigation

Rent and crop-share terms

Where a tenant is recorded, the Jamabandi notes how rent is paid. Chakota is cash rent. Batai is rent as a share of the crop, written as a fraction:

A fixed lump-sum rent for the year is recorded as Lagan Bilmukta Saal Tamam.

Buying, selling, gifting and inheriting land

Whenever land changes hands, the revenue record describes the transaction with a specific word. Recognising these words in the Kaifiyat column or in a mutation order tells you at a glance what happened to the land before you.

Sale, gift and exchange

Mortgage (Rehan)

A mortgage entry is one of the most important things to spot, because it means someone other than the owner has a claim on the land.

Inheritance and family words

The legal rules every landowner should know

The Punjab Land Revenue Act is short on jargon once you read it. A handful of its rules shape almost every land transaction in the state.

You must report what you acquire

Section 34 says anyone who acquires a right in land — by inheritance, purchase, mortgage, gift or otherwise — must report it to the Patwari. The Patwari enters it in the register of mutations, and a Revenue Officer then decides whether to sanction it. If you do not report within three months, the Collector can fine you up to five times the mutation fee that would have been payable (Section 39).

The Punjab Revenue Department's instructions require an uncontested mutation to be attested within three months of the event that caused it. In 2020 the state cabinet raised the mutation fee from ₹300 to ₹600, the first increase since 2012.

What the record says is presumed true

Under Section 44, an entry made lawfully in the Record of Rights or the Jamabandi is presumed to be true until it is proved otherwise. If an entry is wrong, the remedy is to get it corrected through the Revenue Officer, or to file a civil suit for a declaration of your right under Section 45.

Partition, demarcation and boundaries

Recovery of unpaid land revenue

If land revenue is not paid, the Act provides a ladder of steps. These words sometimes appear in older records of a holding.

Other definitions from the Act

Everyday Urdu words on a Fard

Many of the words that confuse people on a Fard are not technical at all. They are ordinary Urdu words for "old", "current", "son of" or "resident of".

Crops and seasons

Crop inspection (Girdawari) is done every harvest: Kharif in September–October, Rabi in February–March and Zaid in April–May.

Directions

Common words in entries

A Mahkuki (overwritten) entry deserves a second look. It is not proof of anything wrong, but it is worth comparing against the Parat Sarkar copy in the tehsil record room.

A six-step check before you pay a token amount

These are the checks worth running on any land file before you commit money. None of them needs a lawyer to begin with; all of them need the right papers.

1. Get the latest Jamabandi and Fard for each khasra number, online through the Punjab Land Records Society portal or from the Patwari.
2. Match the owner and share. The name in the Khewat should match the seller's ID, and the share being sold should not exceed the share recorded.
3. Check the Khatauni. If someone other than the owner is recorded as cultivating, find out whether they are a tenant with rights.
4. Read the Kaifiyat column line by line. Look for Rehan (mortgage), Kurki (attachment), acquisition notices, court orders or a pending Intkal.
5. Match the area on paper and on the ground. Compare the kanal-marla figure with the Shajra map and, if there is any doubt, ask for a Nishandehi (demarcation).
6. Confirm the land type. Ghair Mumkin, Shamlat or other restricted categories change what you can build and how the land can be transferred.

For the complete list of documents for any property type, see our guide to documents required to buy property in India.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a Jamabandi and a Fard?

The Jamabandi is the full Record of Rights for a village, maintained by the Patwari and revised every five years. A Fard is a certified copy of the part of that record relating to your land. Banks and registries ask for the Fard.

How many square feet are in one kanal in Punjab?

One kanal is 20 marla, which is 5,445 sq ft, 605 sq yd or about 505.86 sq m. Eight kanal make one acre.

Is a bigha the same everywhere in Punjab?

No. The size of a bigha differs between systems and regions, from about 6,806 to 27,225 sq ft across India. Always rely on the kanal-marla or square-metre figure in the Jamabandi.

What does a field number like 3//21 mean?

It is a murabba-and-killa number. The first figure is the murabba (a 25-acre block) and the second is the killa (field) within it, so 3//21 is field 21 in block 3.

How long does a mutation take?

Punjab Revenue Department instructions require an uncontested mutation to be attested within three months of the event — the sale deed, gift or death that caused it. Contested mutations take longer because the Revenue Officer has to decide the dispute.

What can I do if the Jamabandi has a wrong entry?

The entry is presumed correct until proved otherwise (Section 44). Apply to the Revenue Officer for correction — a clerical error is corrected through a Fard Badar — or file a civil suit for a declaration of your right under Section 45.

Conclusion

Punjab's land records look intimidating because of their vocabulary, not because of their logic. Underneath the Urdu, the system is simple: one register (the Jamabandi) says who owns and who cultivates each numbered field; maps show where that field is; and every change must pass through a mutation sanctioned by a Revenue Officer.

Once you can read a Khewat, a Khatauni and the Kaifiyat column, and convert kanal-marla into square feet in your head, most of the risk in a land deal becomes visible on paper — before any money changes hands. Keep this page bookmarked, check every Fard against it, and when an entry still does not make sense, ask before you pay.

If you are looking at a plot or agricultural land in Mohali or elsewhere in Punjab and want a second opinion on its records, book a free 15-minute call with our team or call +91 78146 13916.

Sources and how we checked this guide

We built this glossary from a traditional list of Urdu revenue terms and verified each legal rule against the text of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887. Unit conversions were calculated from the statutory ratios and checked against published conversion tables. Where traditional sources disagree — as they do on the size of a bigha — we have said so rather than picking one figure.

• The Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 – India Code
• The Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 – full text, CaseMine
• Glossary of Revenue Terms – Department of Land Resources, Government of India (via LBSNAA)
• Punjab Revenue Department – instructions on mutations
• Punjab hikes mutation fee from ₹300 to ₹600 – The Daily Pioneer, 2020
• Marla (unit) – Wikipedia
• Measurement of land in Punjab – Wikipedia
• Khasra: Indian land record system – Front Desk Architects & Planners (2019)

This guide is for general information and does not replace legal advice. Land laws, fees and procedures change; verify current requirements with the Tehsil office or a qualified lawyer before any transaction.