The Government of India’s introduction of the SVAMITVA scheme marks a landmark policy effort in
rural property-rights reform. By seeking to provide formal recognition to residential abadi holdings that
have long remained outside clear legal and financial records, the scheme lays foundation for stronger
tenure security, better local governance and wider participation in formal credit markets. This paper
evaluates how SVAMITVA by formalizing rural property rights has significantly enabled women and
those at the bottom the pyramid to leverage such residential property rights as a collateral to gain access
to formal credit. Using granular level data and high-dimensional fixed-effects difference-in-differences
and triple-difference specifications, the baseline estimates show that sanctioned loan amounts increased
by 23% in districts where SVAMITVA were implemented after rollout. The gains are distributionally
progressive: borrowers from backward classes experience an additional 21% increase , while borrowers
in Aspirational Districts record an additional 23% increase, both over common treatment effect of 23%.
Among women, the strongest gains are concentrated at the bottom of the pyramid: the bottom 20% of
women borrowers see a 24% increase in sanctioned loan amounts. In particular, across all such women,
Muslim women exhibit an incremental 5.8% increase over the common treatment effect of 23%. This
increase is significant as Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act that was passed in
2019 rendered the practice of triple talaq void and aimed to strengthen Muslim women’s legal
protection. Thus, it is the possible that 2021 SVAMTIVA act coupled with 2019 Muslim Women Act
has created a favorable institutional impact. Overall, the findings suggest that SVAMITVA relaxed
collateral constraints, deepened formal credit access, and did so in a socially and spatially inclusive
manner. We recommend that a SVAMITVA-like scheme be launched in urban India as well to integrate
scattered land records across states and the ongoing NAKSHA scheme be extended to all Urban Local
Bodies.
