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POLICY REVIEW
into the implementation, it the Revenue Administration urban poor households in
emerged that informality, and the Urban Local Bodies two select cities of Odisha,
limited buoyancy in the real (ULBs). Taking Odisha as as well as in-depth meetings
estate market, and unsold a case, this paper presents and interviews with key
housing stocks deterred detailed documentation stakeholders at the city and
large-scale participation of of the processes required state levels. It also draws upon
private developers. Instead, to obtain RoR and its the documents published by
BLC emerged as the most feasibility as the ‘must have’ GIZ India titled Unravelling
successful vertical, breaking documentary evidence for the Interface between Land
the myth that urban poor do accessing housing subsidies. Administration Systems and
not own land in cities. To localise the understanding Spatial Planning Processes:
two cities of Berhampur The Case of Odisha, India and
One of the critical inputs and Puri were selected in Demystifying Urban Land
to access the support for Odisha. This paper aims to Tenure Issues, The Curious
housing development document the learnings from Case of Small Cities in India,
under BLC guidelines is the Odisha for informing national A Case Study from Odisha.
‘adequate documentation’ or and state-level schemes to
the ‘Right’ papers as evidence facilitate addressing housing A REVIEW OF LAND
for the land ownership. The demand among the urban MANAGEMENT
majority of the States initially poor segment, especially the SYSTEMS IN ODISHA
interpreted them as Record economically weaker sections. India follows a dual land
of Right (RoR) that excluded record keeping system (deed
many otherwise eligible APPROACH AND registration system and the
beneficiaries. The success of METHODOLOGY land revenue system of RoR).
BLC in smaller and medium The paper adopts a mixed- The co-existence of this dual
towns reinforces the fact that method approach to system makes maintenance
poor in these cities do own of clear and/or updated
land albeit lack the adequate understand the various land records cost intensive,
documentation to make their typologies of land title and inefficient to operate and
claim. Many states addressed land ownership documents complicated to maintain. The
available to the slum dwellers
these barriers and simplified presumptive titling system
the processes to get the of Odisha, the processes that is without a robust updated
‘Right’ papers. To date, out of required for accessing RoR in spatial database subjects
11 million houses approved the state, and the innovations land related transactions to
under the mission, over 70% undertaken by the state to litigations thereby hindering
are approved under the BLC facilitate large scale uptake the potential for raising
category (PMAY Data). of the available BLC subsidy. resources. The situation is
The study involved field particularly complex among
Against this backdrop, it research conducted in 2017-18, urban poor dwellers.
emerges that the provision including continued dialogue
of housing, especially in with urban slum households, The land records in Odisha
smaller and medium towns, collecting and collating have a measure of complexity
can be resolved by forging an relevant land documents that is not present in any
effective partnership between from slum and non-slum other similar-sized state.
April 2022 Volume 23 No. 1 - SHELTER 41
