BHUBANESWAR: Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Suresh Pujari on Friday announced that the state government has decided to amend the Odisha Government Land Settlement Rules, 1983 to redefine a landless person so that more beneficiaries can be included under the Vasundhara scheme.
Pujari said the state government has provided four decimals of homestead land under the Vasundhara scheme to landless persons. But there are many people who have inherited land which measures less than four decimal of homestead land. Such people are not able to construct a house because the land which they inherited is less than four decimal and they are also not counted as landless.
Pujari said that the government has proposed an amendment in the rules to declare such persons as landless to make them eligible for the Vasundhara benefits. He, however, said that such persons will not be given four decimals of homestead land under the scheme.
A person, who has inherited one or two decimal of homestead land, will get land under the scheme by deducting the land he has inherited. A person who has inherited one decimal of land will be eligible for three decimal of homestead land under the scheme, he explained.
The minister said a person having less than four decimal of land can surrender the land to government if he wants a single parcel of four decimal homestead land to construct his house. The government will also not allow beneficiaries under the Vasundhara scheme to sell their land. The existing rules permitted a beneficiary to sell the land after 10 years.
“It has been seen that many beneficiaries sell their land after 10 years and again apply for land under the scheme as they become landless. The state government will stop such practice. A beneficiary can surrender his or her land to the government and can again apply for land under the scheme,” he said.