The task, being executed by the Land and Land Reforms Department, will make finding land for industries easier. Once ready, the map, which will indicate everything about a plot under consideration, will be available online. “We have finished some blocks and are working fast to finish the map,” said a senior official of the department.

The state has 341 blocks and 37,910 villages. The digitisation of the map is being done by National Informatics Centre. The state’s endeavour has snagged laurels from the Union Ministry of Rural Development, which has proposed to set up a centre in Kolkata to train officials of other states to prepare and digitise a land use map of their states.

On January 29, Rita Sinha, Joint Secretary in the Union Ministry of Rural Development visited Kolkata to check on the progress made by the department. “She was so impressed that she suggested West Bengal train officials of other states. In fact, she offered Central help to set up a training institute here,” said a senior official of the department.

West Bengal has a total of about 8 million hectares of land, of which 63 per cent is agricultural land.

Minister Abdur Rezzaq Mollah said his department would try to finish the job as early as possible. “Once the digitisation is over, it will be easy for the government to find land for industries,” he told The Indian Express.