jaipur

Updated: May 26, 2016 08:46 IST

For over five decades, 75-year-old Mangidas of Bikaner’s Jaimalsar village struggled to get a misspelling of his name corrected in the land records.Mangidas died late last week, immediately after his son told him that authorities had finally complied.

Relatives say the farmer was just 20 when his father, Nrisinghdas, passed away – leaving him 10 bighas of land in Nokha Daiya village and 40 bighas outside Jaimalsar. However, while the land was being transferred, somebody erroneously put his name down as Mangnidas.

The addition of a single letter to Mangidas’ name resulted in a battle against red tape that lasted 55 years. “My father tried hard to get it corrected because he wasn’t recognised as a farmer in government records,” said Mangidas’s eldest son, Babudas. “He was even ineligible for the Kisan credit card because his name did not match the one mentioned on paper.”

The name was finally corrected at a Nyay Aapke Dwar (justice at your doorstep) camp held at the Jaimalsar panchayat headquarters on May 21.

“I completed the formalities for the correction and took my father’s thumb impression on an affidavit,” said Jankidas, his second son. “He couldn’t believe that his name was finally going to be corrected in the records. He seemed out of breath with excitement.”

By the time he returned with the proof of the correction, Mangidas was no more. “He died of happiness,” said Jankidas.

A revenue official at the camp said he wasn’t aware of previous efforts by Mangidas to get his name corrected because he was posted in the area only recently. “We carried out the correction as per the application. Unfortunately, he’s not around to see the rectification,” the official said.

The Rajasthan government has been holding Nyay Aapke Dwar camps across the state to resolve long-pending revenue cases.