All Villages Of Haryana Have Been Made 'Lal Dora-Free': Khattar

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Saturday said all villages of the state have been made "Lal Dora-free". The state government launched a scheme to make villages "Lal Dora-free" on Good Governance Day on December 25, 2019, he said, adding that a month later, on Republic Day, Sirsi village of Karnal district became the first one.

Khattar was interacting with beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri SVAMITVA Yojana through audio-conferencing here, according to an official statement. SVAMITVA scheme is a reformative step towards the establishment of clear ownership of property in rural inhabited areas by mapping land parcels using drone technology and providing a 'Record of Rights' to village household owners with the issuance of legal ownership cards, it said.

Khattar said over 25 lakh property cards have been finalised in 6,260 villages across the state. Of these, over 24 lakh have also been handed over to respective owners, he added. The chief minister further said that 4.62 lakh such properties of 3,613 villages have been registered so far.

Khattar said it was a matter of pride and honour for the state that the SVAMITVA scheme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi across the country over three years ago. He said that there was no revenue record of any kind of property in the village under 'Lal Dora'. Bank loans were also not available on such property, he said.

"There used to be quarrels over the ownership rights as well. That's why the villagers across the state had been demanding for a long time to free the villages from 'Lal Dora'. We extensively examined these issues and took the bold initiative to make the villages 'Lal Dora' free. "Today all the villages of the state have been made Lal Dora-free," he said.

He said that for this work, field verification of rural and residential areas was done in every village and mapping of every property falling under 'Lal Dora' was closely checked. "Thereafter, each asset has been given a unique identity. Now the record of land and property inside Lal Dora will be correct, due to which there will be no dispute regarding the ownership rights," Khattar said.

In several states, the inhabited areas of villages – known as ”lal dora” land in Punjab and Haryana and "abadi" in some – had largely remained out of the purview of such surveys. As a result, many village communities across India did not possess a record of rights, and their claim of ownership over land in "abadi" area depended largely on their actual possession of the property. In the absence of a legal document, the owners of the properties in the rural areas are not able to utilise their own property as a financial asset for availing loans from banks.