Demystifying Urban Land Tenure Issues - The curious case of small cities in India - A case study from Odisha

Provision of housing cannot be addressed without resolving the issues related to land. Implementation of PMAY-U across India has brought to the fore that urban poor households in smaller cities are not necessarily encroachers, contrary to popular perception. Thus, the need to streamline land records emerges as a necessary condition for the successful implementation of such housing programmes. As this is a time consuming process, it is recommended to begin by drawing up a land tenure continuum that includes many intermediate categories located on the spectrum between fully formal freehold and a complete lack of land rights. Accordingly, it was decided to undertake a land tenure study for Odisha with the objective of drawing up a roadmap for exploring possibilities to include semi-formal housing/land tenure under the ambit of prevailing State (AWAAS) and Central Missions (PMAY-U). The study involved field research including continued dialogue with urban slum households, collection and collation of relevant land documents from slum and non-slum households, as well as in-depth meetings and interviews with key officials in the Planning and Revenue Departments at the state and city levels.