CONTEXT

The Union Science Minister has said that India plans to prepare digital maps of all its 6,00,000 villages and pan-India 3D maps would be prepared for 100 cities.

THE NEED OF LAND RECORDS

• Land is an essential source:Land is an essential source for most economic activities aimed at creating economic growth in the world.Therefore, the management of land resources is considered a significant component of economic policy of any country.
• Debt trap of money lenders:The owner of property in rural areas is not able to leverage it as a financial asset acceptable by the banks to provide loans and other financial assistance in the absence of a legal document.
  • The residents are hence left with no other option but to avail loans from non-institutional creditors who may charge them steep interest rates, lack of awareness among the uninformed rural population leads them into spiralling debt trap leaving them at mercy of moneylenders.
• Lack of institutional credit:According to household assets and indebtedness survey 2013 by Ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MOSPI), about 20% of households have reported outstanding credit with non-institutional lenders while the same number is the 10% for urban India.
• Lack of statistical estimates of record of rights: only few studies exist that provide statistical estimates of record of rights as far as non-agriculture property rights in rural India are concerned.
  • For instance the surveys like national family health survey or India human development survey take into account either agriculture land or all land without segregating the inhabited land.
• Lack of record of rights:The lack of record of rights in rural inhabited areas results in low level of land governance, presumptive ownership of properties, long pending property related disputes and illiquid land market in rural areas
• Specific issues related to India: The issue specifically matters for India because an average household has 77% of its total assets in real estate, this number is 40% for the USA, 60% for China and 35% for the UK.

SVAMITVA SCHEME

• The SVAMITVA (Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas) was launched by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj in 2020.
• The scheme was launched considering the lack of record of rights (RoR) and absence of survey of inhabited areas in villages, hence there was a requirement to provide RoR in the form of property cards to village household owners utilising the latest drone survey technology across villages of India.
• The scheme aims to provide the record of rights to village house of donors possessing houses in inhabited rural areas and issuance of property cards to property owners. It would facilitate monetisation of rural residential assets for credit and other financial services.

Objectives of the SVAMITVA Scheme Leveraging property as a financial asset by the citizens of rural India. Creation of accurate land records for rural planning. Providing an integrated property validation solution for rural India. Serve as a means of reducing property related disputes. Facilitate with the determination of property tax. Creation of survey infrastructure and GIS (geographic information system) maps that can be used by any department or agency.

• The SVAMITVA scheme uses the combination of survey grade drones and CORS network (continuously operated reference stations) to accurately survey large areas in a very short span of time.
• The high-resolution and accurate image-based maps facilitate the creation of the most durable records of property holdings in areas with no legacy revenue records.
• The scheme was rolled out for implementation across all states and union territories in 2021 based on the successful implementation and outcome of the pilot phase.
• The number of households expected to be benefited from the scheme is about 13.13 crores based on the socio-economic caste Census-2011.

Engagement with Department of financial services (DFS)

• Minister of Panchayati Raj has also engaged with the Department of financial services in an endeavour to provide legal validation to the property cards for examination of title deeds or property cards by the bank authorities so that the same are recognised by the banks for loans and other financial benefits.
• The states have amended their respective state acts or rules for provisioning of property cards as a valid legal document of ownership and engagement banks for formulating formants of property cards acceptable for mortgage purposes.
• The property owners in rural inhabited areas can also download the Aadhaar authenticated property card on the mobile phones through the DigiLocker application.

CONCLUSION

• The creation of accurate maps has several other benefits of gram Panchayat as well as to other stakeholders.
• The creation of accurate land records and GIS Maps would support Panchayats in preparation of better quality gram Panchayat development plans (GPDP).
• The gram panchayats would also be able to streamline their property tax determination and collections in states and the accurate determination of properties and transparent land titles, thereby leading to generation of their own sources of revenue which could be gainfully utilised for various developmental works.

Thus, SVAMITVA scheme aims for holistic development of gram Panchayat through the empowerment of villages and the residents which would eventually make rural India Atmanirbhar.

Source: Click Here

 

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