Residents of hamlets keen on revenue village status

Neena Sharma

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, July 8

Deprived of benefits of development, several small villages in Uttarakhand are eagerly awaiting the tag of revenue villages that would enable them access to drinking water, electricity and above all ownership of land.

The state Revenue Board is flooded with proposals and is keen to do justice to these. The state government is also inthe process of framing guidelines for converting small hamlets to revenue villages.

According to the 2011 census, there are around 16,629 revenue villages in the state. But Revenue Department officials put the figure at 16,650. Around seven villages were recently converted to revenue villages.

These include Tehri Dob village in Haridwar where the government had settled the Tehri Dam oustees in the 80s. The Tehri Dob residents were not part of the mainstream, until their village was declared a revenue village. Similarly, Sirola village in Tehri district and Auli village in Chakrata were also made revenue villages, much to the delight of the residents who had been pressing their political representatives to move proposals.

These upgraded villages will get automatically listed in revenue records, boosting development and also bringing in political gains.

“Once a village gets listed in the revenue record, villagers automatically get ownership right over land in their possession. The government can initiate all schemes in these areas,” said Yashpal Arya, Revenue Minister.

Further, once the village becomes a gram panchayat after the due process, villagers can participate in the panchayat elections. “Any political party that takes up the issue can safely get a pradhan elected who would always be favourably disposed towards it. It is a win-win situation for political parties. No wonder, there is a race to declare as many revenue villages as possible though some may not even merit consideration,” said a senior revenue official.

To avoid an unsavoury situation, the government is working on the guidelines that would fix a criteria for converting villages to revenue villages in hill areas and plains of the state.