What is khasra?
Also called: khasra number, gata number, khasra girdawari, survey number
A khasra number is the number given to one specific plot of land on the village map. It is used in UP, Uttarakhand, MP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana and Punjab, and it is how the revenue department identifies a field or plot.
Every village in north and central India has a map (the shajra or naksha) divided into numbered parcels. That number is the khasra. In Uttar Pradesh the same thing is usually called the gata number, and the land is recorded against it in hectares. In Haryana and Punjab the older settlement system splits land into rectangles and killas, so you'll see something like 45//12, meaning rectangle 45, killa 12. Maharashtra, Karnataka and the southern states don't use the word at all; there it's a survey number or survey and hissa number.
The khasra register itself is a separate revenue record kept by the patwari (lekhpal in UP). It lists each khasra number with its area, soil class, irrigation source and the crop grown each season, which is why you'll hear the term khasra girdawari, the crop inspection. It describes the land. Ownership sits in the khatauni or jamabandi, which groups several khasra numbers under one holder's account.
For buyers the khasra number is the thread that ties every document together. The sale deed, the khatauni, the Bhu-Naksha map and any conversion order should all quote the same number and the same area. In UP you can check the khatauni online on UP Bhulekh (upbhulekh.gov.in) by district, tehsil, village and gata number, and the map on the state's Bhu-Naksha site. MP buyers use MP Bhulekh, Rajasthan buyers Apna Khata, Bihar buyers Bihar Bhumi.
The trouble starts when a colonizer sells plots out of a large khasra without partitioning it. Twenty buyers can end up with registries for "part of khasra 312", none of them demarcated, and the revenue map still shows one undivided field.
A buyer in Dadri, Gautam Buddh Nagar, pays ₹32 lakh for a 200 sq yd plot described as part of gata number 418 (total 0.506 hectare). The khatauni shows 11 co-sharers on that gata, so the seller only owns a fraction of it and nothing on the ground marks which fraction is his.
Buyers check that the seller's name appears against the khasra number but ignore the area and the co-sharers. If the seller's share in the khatauni is smaller than what he's selling you, the excess is simply not his to sell.
Questions people ask about khasra
Is the khasra number the same as the khata number?
No. The khasra number identifies a piece of land on the map. The khata number is the account of a landholder, and one khata can contain several khasra numbers spread across the village.
Can I find a khasra number from an address?
Not directly. You need the district, tehsil and village name, and then you can search the state land records site by owner name or browse the village map. A copy of the seller's previous registry is the quickest source.