NEW DELHI: Property rights will enhance economic activities and help in poverty alleviation in villages, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday.
Distributing more than 65 lakh property cards under the SVAMITVA scheme at a virtual event, the Prime Minister highlighted the “global challenge” of property rights.
“In the 21st century, there are so many challenges like climate change, water shortage, health crises, and epidemics. But the world has been facing one more big challenge. This challenge is of property rights.
Many years ago, the United Nations had done a study on land property in many countries of the world,” he said. “The UN had clearly stated that if poverty is to be reduced, then it is very important for people to have property rights,” he added.
Modi said India has faced this issue as well. “Despite having property worth lakhs of rupees in villages, people often did not have legal documents for them. So there were disputes about their ownership,” the Prime Minister said.
He also referred to an economist’s observation that property in villages was like “dead capital” since it could not generate income for its owners.
“Dalits, backward classes and tribals were the worst affected by this,” he said. Modi noted that the SVAMITVA scheme, initiated five years ago, aimed to provide villagers with legal proof of their houses. “The names are different in different states, but these are the certificates of SVAMITVA. In the last five years, these cards have been given to about 1.5 crore people,” he said.
Modi said the scheme would help people access loans and government benefits. “Because there were no papers, there were disputes, and banks did not provide loans over such properties,” he said.
Property cards were distributed among 65 lakh beneficiaries living across over 50,000 villages in 10 states Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, HP, MP, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, UP and UTs of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.