Mughal emperor Akbar improved the patwari system, which had been introduced in the Indian subcontinent under the leadership of Sher Shah Suri.
[9] The appointment of a talati was viewed negatively by village chiefs, who saw him as a government representative in the absence of a kulkarni or watandar.
[11] Talatis are known as patwari in Bengal, karanam in Andhra Pradesh and North India, and kanakku pillai in Tamil villages.
[10] Known as lekhpal in Uttar Pradesh, the word is derived from the Sanskrit root tal (to accomplish a vow, to establish or to fix) and has the same meaning in Marathi.
[12] The duties of a talati include maintaining village crop and land records and collecting taxes and irrigation dues.
[9] As the lowest state functionary in the revenue-collection system, their job encompasses visiting agricultural lands and maintaining a record of ownership and tilth.
[19] They have three main duties: In the hilly regions of Indian state of Uttarakhand, British administration had given additional law enforcement powers and functions to patwaris.
Girdawary, the record of land cultivation (crops and ownership), is maintained by the patwari in Telangana, by the Talati in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka, and similar officials in other Indian states.
[citation needed] Lal Dora, a term introduced by the British Raj in 1908, is a red line drawn on revenue maps that delineates the village population from nearby agricultural land.