Creation of a digital database for preliminary index diagrams (PIDs): case study of Athiru / Ruujine / Ndoleli adjudication section, Meru County

Abstract

In the Kenyan rural areas (designated as adjudication areas), land ownership is through the process of land adjudication, in which the Preliminary Index Diagrams (PIDs) are the official map documents. The PIDs together with adjudication records constitute the adjudication registers that form the basis for determination of interests and rights over land and the subsequent issuance of titles. A PID at a glance does not relay the information about the adjudication process; from the declaration of an adjudication area by a minister, declaration of the subsequent adjudication sections by the Land Adjudication Officers (LAOs), publication of the section, and other relevant information. The information is usually not readily available, as it exists in analogue form, that is, file based, and scattered over different departments and sections in the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning. This realization led to the creation of a digital platform in this project, which encapsulated all the information in one central place. It involved the use of database design rules (normalization), creation a spatial database using PostgreSQL, geo-referencing and digitizing the PID sheets using ArcGIS software, and posting the results on a digital platform. Athiru / Ruujine / Ndoleli Adjudication section, in Meru County was used as a case study. Guided by the Land Adjudication Act (Cap.284), data needed for the creation of the database, such as declaration date of an adjudication area, the Minister who declared it, gazettement and gazette notices of the subsequent adjudication sections, publishing of an adjudication section, were identified. The project has demonstrated how easy and fast it is to query and retrieve information using the digital database, by querying of the database, and data visualization on the web interface, as opposed to the cumbersome, time wasting and manual record-retrieving process that is prone to record mishandling/loss of information. This approach is highly recommended to the relevant Ministry for adoption and implementation.