Mission set up to give title deeds to all in Kerala

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government has constituted a Pattayam Mission consisting of monitoring committees from the village level to the state level in order to ensure pattayam (title deeds) distribution to the landless in an effective and time-bound manner and to ensure proper coordination at various levels.
As on March 21 this year, as many as 1,32,229 applications are pending before the government seeking title deeds. The committees have been formed in five levels- village, taluk, district, and state levels. The Pattayam Mission will have a state-level supervisory committee at the top, which will be an eight-member committee consisting of the secretaries of revenue, law, local self-government, public works, forests and wildlife, water resources, scheduled castes, and scheduled tribes welfare and fisheries departments.
The task of the committee would be to review the functioning of the mission, inter-departmental coordination for locating the land under the ownership of various departments, and recommend necessary legal amendments in applications for title deeds with legal complications. A state-level task force will function under the secretary-level review mission, with the land revenue commissioner as its chairperson and consisting of the director of survey and land records, state land board secretary, law officer of the state land board, and assistant commissioner (land assignment).
A senior superintendent, two revenue inspectors, and three senior clerks will be posted exclusively at the disposal of this task force. The task force will monitor and review the progress in the districts, and make necessary recommendations to the government regarding the amendment required in the acts and rules.
Each of the districts will have a district-level task force with the district collector as its chairperson and also consisting of a deputy collector (land reforms), sub-collector or the RDOs, land tribunal chiefs, tahsildars, and district survey superintendent as its members. This task force will have a similar task to that of the state-level task force in the respective district.
In addition, a taluk-level task force will also be formed in each taluk, under which the field-level information gathering committee headed by a village officer as the convenor will be formed in each of the 1648 villages across the state. The village-level committee with civil society members will be entrusted with the task of locating those families without title deeds for their lands, and those who have not applied despite being eligible because of ignorance or lack of awareness, and find out and report the issues relating to the title deeds in the village.