Patwari
Also called: Lekhpal, Talati, Karnam, Village Accountant
The village level revenue official who maintains land records.
The patwari keeps the land records for a group of villages, records crops each season, and prepares the paperwork for mutation. The post carries different names by state, including lekhpal in Uttar Pradesh, talati in Gujarat and Maharashtra, and village accountant in Karnataka. Corrections to a land record almost always start with this office.
Where you will see this on the site
This term appears in the census tables reproduced across state, district, tehsil and village pages. How we source and handle those figures is set out on the about the data page.
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Page last reviewed: August 2026. Back to the glossary