A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP

AN ACCURATE SURVEY OF THE LAND WILL HELP GRAM PANCHAYATS OFFER BETTER CIVIC SERVICES

- Manish Dixit

VALID ADDRESS A village house near Pilibhit, UP

Shishupal Singh, a resident of Arimal Yayi Tipu village in Kanpur Dehat in eastern Uttar Pradesh, has just heard of the Centre’s new Swamitva scheme, which will allot property cards to every house in the village. Excited because he feels the value of their houses will go up, he is sure banks too will start looking at villagers with new interest. Shishupal, whose wife is the gram pradhan, says houses in the village carry little value now as there are no proper records (land records now are kept by the ‘family register’ at the panchayat office, a phenomenon peculiar to the state). He’s hoping the system will change with the Centre’s new initiative.

The Swamitva scheme, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Panchayati Raj Diwas—April 24—has a mammoth plan in the works: to use the latest drone model survey to map every rural property in the 662,000 villages of the country over the next four years. Once the survey and legalities are taken care of, owners will be issued a property card with a house number. The pilot phase this year (2020-21) plans to cover over 100,000 villages in six states.

The panchayati raj ministry will coordinate the scheme’s progress along with the Survey of India and the panchayati raj and revenue departments of various states. According to the Centre, the Swamitva scheme will unlock the benefits of owning rural properties. Apart from market appreciation, the property cards would stand as collateral for loans or advances from banks and financial institutions. An accurate survey of the properties will also help the gram panchayats offer better civic services, besides enabling them to collect property taxes in the future. For the states, the survey maps will be of immense use in preparing future development schemes.