Empowering Villagers with Property Cards

Ownership of land and house plays a big role in the development of a country. Armed with proper property papers, citizens can confidently approach banks for loans against property, particularly when banks are more than willing to extend credit to borrowers whose property papers are in order. This opens up many avenues of self-employment and job creation.

Keeping this in mind and realising the worth of late social reformer and politician Nanaji Deshmukh’s view that as long as the people in villages remain mired in web of property disputes, neither they nor the society will be able to develop themselves, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Nanaji’s birth anniversary on October 11, 2020, had launched the physical distribution of Property Cards under what is called the SVAMITVA Scheme.

The implementation of the scheme is now in full force. It will strengthen the Panchayati Raj system by making the local management easier for the gram panchayats, on the lines of municipalities and municipal corporations. Gram Panchayat and community assets like village roads, ponds, canals, open spaces, school, Anganwadi, health sub-centres, etc. would be surveyed under the scheme.

In the pilot phase around one Lakh property owners can download their Property Cards through the SMS link delivered on their mobile phones. This would be followed by physical distribution of the Property Cards by the respective state governments.

For creating the correct land records of every village, drones are being employed in survey and mapping. “With the accurate land record, all the work related to the development of the village will be done very easily,” the Prime Minister had said.

Main features of “SVAMITVA”

– Survey of Villages And Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas (SVAMITVA) is a Central Sector Scheme of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj

– The Scheme aims to provide the ‘record of rights’ to household owners in rural areas, and issue Property Cards

– The Scheme is being implemented across the country in a phased manner. Over a period of four years (2020–24) it would eventually cover around 6.62 Lakh villages of the country

– About 1 Lakh villages in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Karnataka, and few border villages of Punjab and Rajasthan, along with establishment of Continuous Operating System (CORS) stations’ network across Punjab and Rajasthan, are being covered in the Pilot phase (2020–21)

– All these six states have signed MoU with Survey of India for drone survey of rural areas and implementation of the scheme

– These states have finalised the digital property card format, and the villages to be covered for drone-based survey

BENEFITS OF SVAMITVA

– Helps in a streamlined planning and revenue collection

– Provides clarity over property rights in rural areas

– Will make it easy for the property owners to seek and get loans from financial institutions

– Disputes related to property would also be settled through the title deeds allotted through this scheme

– Clear the way to buy and sell property without any dispute for the villagers

PILOT PHASE

– The one Lakh beneficiaries, who have so far received the Property Cards under the scheme, are spread over 763 villages across six states. Of these, 346 are in Uttar Pradesh, 221 in Haryana, 100 in Maharashtra, 44 in Madhya Pradesh, 50 in Uttarakhand and 2 in Karnataka

– Beneficiaries from all these states except Maharashtra will receive the physical copies of the Property Cards within one day. Maharashtra has a system of recovering a nominal cost of Property Card, so it will take a month’s time.

These Property Cards are called ‘Title deed’ in Haryana, ‘Rural Property Ownership Records (RPOR)’ in Karnataka, ‘Adhikar Abhilekh’ in Madhya Pradesh, ‘Sannad’ in Maharashtra, ‘Svamitva Abhilekh’ in Uttarakhand, and ‘Gharauni’ in Uttar Pradesh.