Lucknow, April 7 The Uttar Pradesh Cabinet on Tuesday approved a proposal to grant land ownership rights to over 12,000 families displaced from Pakistan during the Partition and settled in four districts of the state.
Eligible families will be entitled to ownership rights for land up to one acre, subject to the condition that the land is not subject to ceiling limits and does not fall under categories such as threshing grounds, grazing land, or ponds.
Finance Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna said the decision was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
Khanna said the cabinet has approved amendments to the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code, 2006, under the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code (Second Amendment) 2026.
Under the amendment, new provisions have been introduced in Section 76(1) to extend land ownership rights to these families, he said.
The minister said that 12,380 families who migrated during the India-Pakistan Partition and settled in Pilibhit, Lakhimpur Kheri, Rampur, and Bijnor districts will benefit from the move.
According to Khanna, the beneficiaries include those eligible for Indian citizenship under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, as well as families belonging to Scheduled Tribe communities or those rehabilitated under various schemes.
Providing district-wise details, the minister said that Lakhimpur Kheri has 2,350 such families, Pilibhit has 4,000, Bijnor has 3,856, and Rampur has 2,174.
He said that these families, who have been living in the state for nearly 70 years, have faced significant difficulties due to the lack of land ownership, including problems in obtaining bank loans for farming and selling produce at government procurement centers.