Credit impacts of documenting rights to rural habitation land: Exploratory evidence from India’s SVAMITVA scheme
Klaus Deininger, Abhiman Das, Hari K. Nagarajan, Daniel Ali, Parth Hirpara
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To reduce conflict, empower women, and foster investment, entrepreneurship, and credit access, India’s SVAMITVA (Survey of villages abadi and mapping with improvised technology in village areas) program has, since 2020 created the legal basis for issuing property cards (PCs) to rural habitation land and, in a systematic, low-cost, village-wide digital process, mapped or issued PCs to some 87 and 12 million properties, respectively. Quarterly data for 2019-2023 allow us to assess the impact of PC issuance on volume of bank lending and deposits. PC issuance increased the volume of bank credit in a 1-2 year time frame and may have had spillover effects on savings in MP where PCs are fully integrated with digital land records, revenue courts and a charge registry, but not elsewhere where digital interoperability of registries remains more limited. Placebo tests show no effect. While follow up research in nature and incidence of credit effects as well as effects of SVAMITVA beyond credit will be useful, the importance of digital interoperability of property cards with banks as a driver of credit impacts suggests greater emphasis on this aspect by states currently implementing the program may be warranted.
Event: World Bank Land Conference 2024 - Washington
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