 Firstly the fact - every day in Asia, the urban population increases by the equivalent of one city of 140,000 people. Land exists, but no habitation. (Is anybody keeping/updating the land-record?) A city municipality in India requires around 50 separate permissions in case of a land development project. Time taken to get clearance on them is not less than 2 years. Add to these the utmost requirement of ‘palm-grease’. Isn’t that enough to break the back of a builder? The recent decision that came from Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs of the Government of India on fully (100%) opening the construction development sector does not talk of easy access to land records or making information digitally available, and thus doing away with long procedure of getting clearance at multi-levels. A leading Indian builder speculated, ‘allowing State Governments and Municipal bodies to approve projects could prove problematic as this meant dealings with the State agencies.’ Shouldn’t the steps be made simpler to avoid such apprehensions - bringing in e-Cadastre or LIS may do more than half the task. The present state of affairs in the land registration departments may come up fairly from their seemingly status of “terminally infected” and can put a stop on the rampant land-grabbing. ‘Crib’ continues further - proposed Indian Budget 2005-06 gives due emphasis on flow of credit to agriculture as banks are expected to raise agricultural credit by 30% to USD 32 billion in 2005/06. Any emphasis on the tool to claim this credit – land entitlement? It is estimated that 90 per cent of the existing ones are under disputes! And further, in a year declared by UN as the Year of Micro-Credit that aims to bring down the poverty levels, has the issue of property rights taken a backseat? Micro credit definitely helps – but till where? Can keeping away from bringing transparency in the issues of land titles help? Much has been lost, money apart, due to an improper database of lands. Time has been standing ripe to work upon digital cadastre; we should (and have to) set things on place before the staleness sets in. And yes, it can also be hoped that 23% of India, rated as wasteland also sees light of the day. |
