Six out of 10 surveyed owned homes.
A new Gallup survey report published on Tuesday says that about a quarter of homeowners in India and nearly one in five landowners are living under the constant fear of losing their property as they don’t have proper documents to prove their ownership.
The Gallup poll survey was conducted to understand how secure people felt about their homes. The survey was conducted over a period of six months and this is the first of its kind of survey conducted by the US polling firm. The research is the part of two-year long research that aim at understanding the perspective of property owners and security between societies.
According to the poll, six out of 10 surveyed owned homes while they lived n houses owned by a family member.
The survey noted that despite a large number of people owning property, they felt insecure of their property with one in four owners and nearly half of all renters expressing worry about losing their home.
According to the survey, the urban poor is the worst affected as they are unaware of their rights and cannot afford layers and live under constant fear of being evicted from their property.
The report also claims that those who don’t have official documents regarding the ownership of property also is blocked from sanitation, water and electricity and limited access to financial services such as raising credit against a home or farm for investment, the report said.
Gallup surveyed over 14,000 men and women who are both owners and tenants in cities and villages. The project covered 14 Indian states, including Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan and West Bengal. A same kind of survey will be conducted in nine countries during next year.
Gallup also recorded a widening gap in the gender ratio with less woman owning property than men. It also found that despite the gap woman fee as insecure as men when it comes to worries about losing their property.
If people are willing to engage with state authorities on ownership, there are potential resolutions to the problem of insecurity, said the report commissioned by Land Alliance, a Washington-based think tank.
“…Government efforts to make it easier, and affordable, for people to register or update property documentation at local levels could have a large impact on reducing people’s worry about their property rights,” it said.
“This would have benefits for private citizens and the economy as a whole.”