Deepika Jha

Deepika Jha has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in planning from the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi. For over 10 years, Deepika has been part of a team studying land governance in different states in India. She has studied issues around land records management, their modernisation, related technical and institutional aspects, and their linkages to planning and municipal practices in urban and peri-urban areas. As part of various projects, she has also worked on recognising persistent gaps in the systems regarding land administration, identifying the good practices followed by different states, and suggesting ways to improve the transparency and reliability of the current systems.

More recently, she has worked on advising state- and city-level administrations on how land governance systems, particularly urban land information systems, can be improved and more aligned with urban planning processes.

Deepika is also interested in how real estate is regulated in various states of India, and in ways to improve functioning of real estate regulatory authorities.

Her work cuts across the rural–urban continuum, and in the process she has engaged with various officers from the urban administration and land records departments of various states, and has found the experience enriching and humbling. Trained as a physical and regional planner, Deepika’s research interests are around land governance and planning practices. She enjoys data visualisation, especially through simplified maps and graphics.