SVAMITVA

About the scheme

SVAMITVA (Survey of villages and mapping with improvised technology in village areas) scheme is a collaborative effort of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, State Panchayati Raj Departments, State Revenue Departments and Survey of India.
It is a central sector scheme that aims to provide rural people with the right to document their residential properties so that they can use their property for economic purposes. The scheme is for surveying the land parcels in rural inhabited areas using Drone technology.

Objectives

The outcome from the scheme would include updating the record of rights in the revenue/property registers and issuance of property cards to the property owners. This would facilitate monetisation of rural residential assets for credit and other financial services.
It will also lead to creation of accurate land records for rural planning and determination of property tax.
Through the SVAMITVA scheme, the government hopes that property disputes and legal cases will be reduced.
Other gram panchayats and community assets like village roads, ponds, canals, open spaces, school, anganwadi, health sub-centres etc will also be surveyed and GIS maps will be created. These maps can be used to prepare better quality gram panchayat development plans.

Coverage

There are about 6.62 lakh villages in the country which will be eventually covered in this scheme. The entire work is likely to be spread over a period of four years (2020 -2024).
Presently, the pilot phase is being approved for the year 2020-21. Pilot Phase will extend to 8 states – Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan.
The Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR) is the Nodal Ministry for implementation of the scheme. Survey of India shall work as the technology partner for implementation.

Why in News?

The Report of Expert Committee on SVAMITVA Scheme was released recently.
The Expert Committee was formed in February, 2022 under the Chairmanship of B. K. Agarwal, Former Secretary to the Government of India.

Recommendations

Through the recommendations, it is envisaged to create systems that promote transparency in the implementation of the scheme, promote the adoption of record of rights for availing bank loan, develop linkages between different departments for informed decision-making related to property tax assessment and collection, wider adoption of SVAMITVA data-sets by government and private agencies as per new geospatial guidelines, adoption of RADPFI (Rural Area Development Plan Formulation and Implementation) Guidelines and SVAMTIVA data for accurate village level-planning, and increasing capacity at State, District and Block level for GIS skillsets, among others.

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