NEW DELHI: The Centre has set three milestones in urban land reforms, which will lead to the finalisation of land parcel-based property cards, for states to become eligible for incentives in the form of grant-like capex loans.
It has earmarked Rs 5,000 crore in FY25 for the participating states as an incentive, based on their progress in achieving the specified milestones on a ‘First-Come-First¬ Served’ basis. The funds shall be disbursed in a sequential milestone-based manner to Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) as per the prescribed unit rates based on the population of cities. The incentive is part of the Centre’s interest-free 50-year capex loans to states in FY25.
Under the first milestone, states would have to fix ground control points and city boundaries by CORS (Continuously Operating Reference Stations) network, high-resolution digital aerial photography by using survey grade equipment, data processing and 3 D feature extraction, including DEM & DTM; quality control and production of Ortho Rectified Images (ORI) with land parcel boundaries and map publication in 1:500 scale.
The second milestone involves land parcel boundary & area ascertaining by CORS based GNSS rovers & controllers; integration of property holding details of ULBs & ground validation; integration of other documents like authority approvals, land records etc.; standardized data collection and GIS platform and map publication with GIS-ready land parcel maps & its dissemination.
The third milestone 3 involves awareness, community engagement & sensitization; issuance of notices, notifications; claim finalization & dispute resolution of ownership, area, boundary and shape of land parcels; preparation of updated land and property records and final map publication with land property card & register.
Each milestone is considered a sequential step leading to the finalization of land parcel-based property cards. However, States can achieve and claim incentive(s) for individual milestones separately as per their progress in a logical sequence.
Land reforms are a key part of reforms in factors of production that the Centre has been working on to boost economic activity and growth.
It is envisaged to take up more than 100 cities of various population sizes in the 28 States as per their identification and willingness, completing milestone-1 and milestone-2 in the current financial year. However, a few cities in states could also complete and finalize milestone-3. Incentivising these pilots in 100 cities may lead many of the 4,804 ULBs in 28 States to accomplish finalization of urban land records.
The Incentive released for urban land reforms could be utilized by the states towards urban infrastructure projects in the cities that have achieved various milestones and on survey and land records infrastructure.
Source: The Financial Express
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