Lucknow
The Uttar Pradesh (UP) government will disburse ‘Gharauni’ (house ownership) certificates to about 25mn people residing in villages by October 2023.
Addressing an event to distribute Gharauni certificates to 1.1mn villagers, UP chief minister (CM) Yogi Adityanath said nearly 3.4mn people have already benefited from the scheme.
A survey of land by drones in the revenue villages would be completed by August 2022. This would further expedite the distribution of certificates to beneficiaries.
The Gharauni Scheme seeks to facilitate the transfer of ancestral lands and properties to their rightful owners.
Meanwhile, 100 per cent of the beneficiaries in the Jalaun district, Bundelkhand, have received Gharauni certificates.
Expressing gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for launching the Rural Residential Records scheme in April 2020, Yogi said it would help strengthen the rural economy and villages to become self-reliant.
“Mahatma Gandhi dreamt of ‘Gram Swaraj’ (village self-governance), while PM Modi’s vision is to make the country self-reliant. The Gharauni scheme will help realize these larger goals,” he noted.
Yogi said that the scheme would help curb land encroachments, noting the UP government had recovered 64,000 hectares of land, which had been illegally occupied by mafia and criminals since the launch of the scheme.
He stressed the importance of digitizing land records for speedy disposal of pending land dispute cases and increasing the state’s revenue.
Expressing concern over the long pendency of land-related cases in courts, the CM said the scheme would set the records straight leaving little room for disputes.
He claimed that the Gharauni certificates would also enable villagers to get loans easily as well as establish and expand their businesses, describing it as a landmark step in the history of Indian democracy.