Union Minister of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj, Shri Giriraj Singh launched the National Media Campaign of the Department of Land Resources (DoLR) here today in the presence of Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti Minister of State Rural Development, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Shri Ajay Tirkey, Secretary, DoLR and other senior officers of the department.
Shri Giriraj Singh informed that the National Media Campaign of DOLR has been launched to make common people aware of the new initiatives in Land Governance and Watershed Development Component (WDC) of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayi Yojana (PMKSY). Shri Singh said that in the first stage of campaign launch, National Generic Document Registration System, WDC-PMKSY and Cactus Project have been included. Regarding the media plan for Land Regulation – NGDRS the Union Minister informed that under this component government of India launched the Digital India Land Records Modernization Program (DILRMP) in 2016 for providing 100% financial assistance to State Governments for computerization of Sub Registrar Offices (SROs) in the States. Under this National Generic Document Registration System (NGDRS) one nation one software has been prepared with facility of state-specific customization. He informed that 94 percent computerisaton of Sub Registrar Offices has been achieved and 100 percent target will be met by March next year. Earlier, Registration of documents was manual but now the Registration is being done as e Registration. The minister said this has opened up the economy and facilitated capital formation in a big way. With introduction of this system there is saving in time and money in the process of registration making entire process simple and transparent.
Regarding the WDC-PMKSY program, the Minister highlighted that DoLR has implemented the watershed programme since 2019 which was merged with PMKSY scheme in 2015-16. The activities undertaken, inter alia, include ridge area treatment, drainage line treatment, soil and moisture conservation, rainwater harvesting, nursery raising, afforestation, horticulture, pasture development, livelihoods for assetless persons, etc. The Department is implementing Watershed component of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (WDC-PMKSY) for development of rainfed and degraded areas. Approximately, 29 million hectares of degraded land have been covered under Watershed projects out of 97 million hectares, which is probably the biggest campaign globally. It was informed that through the media campaign, DOLR will intensify the awareness generation of the watershed development activities of the department to enhance the people’s participation.
Informing about the cactus project, the Union Minister informed that Noples Cactus – Thornless is a variety of plant which requires very less water to prosper and is very suitable to plantation in watershed areas. It has been found in various research studies that the cactus plant is useful mainly for biogas generation, bio-leather, bio-fertilizer, fodder, medicine and food materials.
Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti Minister of State for M/oRural Development, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, in her address highlighted the initiatives taken by the DoLR under the two scheme of DILRMP and WDC-PMKSY 2.0. She highlighted the importance of media campaign to take the efforts of the government to common public so that people can make best use of the facilities and services provided.
It was informed that through the media campaign DOLR will intensify the awareness generation of the activities of the department to enhance the people’s participation. In order to make general public aware about the programmes/ schemes of the Department, DoLR has chalked out the Media Plan. The first phase of the Campaign will include Outdoor Media, Social Media, Bulk SMS and Radio Jingle components. Post the first stage launch of the Media Campaign the additional components will be added subsequently for extensive and targeted coverage.
In the event the DOLR launched the four different components of the media campaign namely, outdoor media campaign, social media campaign, sms campaign and radio jingles. The high point of today’s launch was radio jingles which were created inhouse in DOLR.
Background:
The Department of Land Resources has taken up various initiatives to ease the living of citizens in the recent years. Under the Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme, the Department is making efforts for saturation of computerization of land records and digitalization of cadastral maps for the benefit of Citizens. In terms of computerization of Record of Rights and computerization of Registration Offices, for instance, the achievement at the National level has been 94% as on 8th August 2023. Similarly, the Digitization of maps in the country is 76%. Besides, DoLR is assigning BhuAadhar or Unique Land Parcel Identification Number to all Land Parcels; and in a one year’s time, almost 9 crore land parcels have been assigned BhuAadhar.
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