Bhubaneswar: Taking a significant initiative for providing land to the slum dwellers, Odisha government signed an MoU with TATA Trust here on Tuesday.

The Memorandum of Understanding was inked between Housing & Urban Development Secretary G. Mathivathanan and Managing Trustee of TATA Trust R Venkataramanan in presence of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at State Secretariat.

Patnaik described the MoU, which was signed for field implementation of land rights in urban areas as 'historic' and 'path breaking'.

Speaking on the occasion, Patnaik said, "Seven months ago we had to take a decision on urban slum dwellers. There was a choice between continuing the practice of evictions and treating people as encroachers resulting in lacks of families living in fear and insecurity or recognizing the immense contribution to life of the city and providing them land rights."

"Keeping people first, we chose the second option. A seemingly complicated situation always has a simple solution. This has been done for the first time in the country and it is path breaking and historic," he said.

The CM said that he was happy to learn that the land settlement is being done in a systematic and scientific manner by using modern technology and with the involvement of community who will be deciding the settlement of land in favour of the slum dwellers.

He congratulated the H&UD department for their efforts in ensuring speedy implementation of the initiative to provide land rights to the slum dwellers. He also thanked and congratulated TATA Trust, which is providing technical support for the initiative.

Patnaik directed all the district collectors and other concerned officials to accord top priority to this work, which will bring happiness on faces of the slum dwellers.

Notably, around 2.5 lakh slum dwellers of 2,500 slums will be benefitted after implementation of the move. The beneficiaries will be allotted 646 sqft and 484 sqft plot in NAC and municipality areas respectively in the state.

Besides, the slum dwellers will be provided the basic facilities along with getting land rights.