NEW DELHI: Legal property cards under Svamitva scheme will unleash the economic power of land parcels, sometimes referred to as ‘dead capital’, since these can be monetised to get loans for business and education, and help in poverty alleviation, PM Modi said on Saturday as he virtually distributed over 65 lakh such cards to people.
Property cards were distributed to beneficiaries across more than 50,000 villages in 10 states — Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, MP, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, UP and two UTs of J&K, and Ladakh — in a single day. Referring to a famous economist, the PM said that he had referred to property as “dead capital” because people could not monetise them.
Modi blames earlier governments for people not having land deeds
Property rights is a major challenge across the world. Years ago, United Nations had held a study, which revealed people did not have legal documents for property rights in several countries. UN has said property rights are important for poverty alleviation,” Modi said.
The PM said India was also impacted by this challenge and people in villages had property worth lakhs of crores of rupees, but they did not have papers for it. “There were disputes, powerful people would take control illegally, and even banks did not provide loans,” he added.
Lashing out at earlier governments, Modi said no sensitive government could leave its villagers in such distress. “Previous governments should have taken steps to do something about it but nothing much was done,” he said.
Modi said after receiving legal documents under the Svamitva scheme, which started five years ago, lakhs of people have taken loans from banks based on their properties and started small businesses in their villages. Earlier, the PM had interacted with some of the beneficiaries and all of them had highlighted how getting a loan based on the property document was easy and they could use this for their business and higher education of their children.
The PM said many such people are farmers, for whom this property card is a guarantee to financial security. He added that once property cards are issued in all villages, the scheme will unlock economic activities worth over Rs 100 lakh crore. Modi said the digitisation of land records, which is now around 98%, will minimise land disputes and corruption. Later, in a post on X, he said rural land digitisation is “furthering rural empowerment by leveraging the power of technology and good governance”.
Panchayati raj minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh ‘Lalan’ said property rights cards are issued in many states in the name of women as main or co-owners, which is empowering for them.
