While interacting with Modi, Mujumale informed him that the village has a population of 2002 and the drone survey went on for a month in the village. (Twitter/@narendramodi)Vishwanath Krushna Mujumale, a farmer from Kondhanpur village in Haveli taluka of Pune district, not only got the property card for the land owned by him in the village but also got an opportunity to interact with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
As Modi launched physical distribution of property cards on Sunday under Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas (SVAMITVA), a central scheme of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Mujumale was among the fortunate five who got an opportunity to interact with the PM.
Under SVAMITVA, the Union government aims to distribute 1.32 lakh property cards in 763 villages in six states namely Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Karnataka.
The first survey of properties in the state using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) was launched in Pune district’s Sonori village last year to map spatial information. The purpose was to give property titles to residential and other properties in around 40,000 villages and help residents gain better liquidity on these assets. After successful pilot, the Rural Development Ministry and state Revenue department had formulated a scheme to conduct drone survey in villages across the state. A state government decision in this regard was taken on February 22, 2019.
The central government has replicated the scheme at national level and has named it SVAMITVA. It was inaugurated by Modi in April 2020.
While interacting with Modi, Mujumale informed him that the village has a population of 2002 and the drone survey went on for a month in the village. “The survey team came with a drone camera and clicked pictures of the village with it. This is for the first time we saw a drone and pictures taken by it. There were no issues, disputes caused during the survey,” Mujumale told Modi.
The Prime Minister appreciated the gesture by Mujumale to frame the property card document and place it in the sight of camera as he interacted via videoconferencing with Modi. The PM said the process relies on modern technology and will bring speed as well as transparency to the process of measurement of land in rural areas.
“I hope the villages are happy that there were ‘No officers’, ‘No dadagiri’, ‘No corruption’ during the process. It’s a transparent process without discrimination and arbitrariness. The entire village is getting the document and this will help in development of the village in a planned manner. The mapping will come handy while designing and creating sewage system, planning of streets,” said Modi while interacting with Mujumale.
At the end of the interaction, Mujumale told Modi that he had a request. “In the villages, 50 per cent residents stay in the gaothan areas and rest of them in the hamlets. The limits of the gaothan should be increased to include the hamlets too so that they also benefit from such scheme,” said Mujumale. Modi said that he will convey this request to state government authorities.
As part of the pilot project of SVAMITVA, 101 villages in Maharashtra will be measured which includes 26 villages from Pune division, 25 in Nashik, 26 in Nagpur and 24 in Aurangabad division, Land Settlement Commissioner S Chockalingam said.
“The technology helps in increasing the accuracy of measurement and reducing the time required. Generally, measuring a village gaothan requires 15-30 days. After this, enquiries about ownership and preparation of the property documents and supplying them to the owner takes several months. On average, the entire process takes about a year. In the new process, the property documents and maps can be provided to the owner within a month,” said Chockalingam, who physically handed over the property card to Mujumale.
Officials said that the scheme will pave the way for using property as a financial asset by villagers for taking loans and other financial benefits.
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