Janakram Pradhan, 81, remembers events in 1956 when the Odisha government had sent trucks to vacate Duanmunda village in Jharsuguda district. In one of India’s first major post-independence multipurpose river valley projects, the government was about to impound the Hirakud reservoir, formed as a result of damming the Mahanadi river. Duanmunda was one of the 19 villages in the district that were majorly hit. But less than a couple of kilometres away, at an elevation of 630-632 feet above the reservoir, were 3,231 acres acquired by the government, but not submerged. It was here that the villagers moved, continuing to call the area Duanmunda.
Janakram and his family of 11 have lived here for 67 years, among others from the village, gradually building concrete houses. It was only in December 2023 that he received the patta (land deed) for 74 decimals of land (about 435 square feet). He is delighted, but says, “The government that forced my family to surrender my land still owes us ₹300 from the ₹5,300 we got as compensation for the 9.5 acres we once owned.”
In a large-scale land records regularisation initiative, a part of the ‘Vision 5T’ that aims to transform Odisha, the government is attempting to resolve decades-old legacy issues. Some of these 30-odd problems related to land classification go back as far as India’s first war of independence in 1857, explain officials from the Revenue Department, under whose purview land records fall. “In Jharsuguda, this has benefited 1,749 families,” says District Collector Aboli Sunil Naravane.
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