Government launches Land Titling Plan for peasant settlements through the IAD

The Dominican Agrarian Institute (IAD) began work on Tuesday on the National Titling Plan (PNT) for peasant settlements, which aims to provide farmers in the Agrarian Reform with that definitive property document.

Darío Castillo Lugo, interim director of the IAD, reported that, with the PTN, whose launch was held in the AC-323 El Soco settlement, located in San Pedro de Macorís, it is intended to deliver, after several years, around 17,000 property titles throughout the country.

“This is a social justice program. Being able to give peasants and their families the titles that accredit them as formal owners of the land they have worked and occupied for decades is a debt that the Dominican State is going to begin to pay,” declared Castillo Lugo.

He explained that with the work on the AC-323, located in the municipality of Ramón Santana, in the aforementioned eastern province, the titling of approximately 290 plots and other properties is estimated.

The official pointed out that for the execution of the initiative, the IAD hired 40 new collaborators, including surveyors, topographers, and lawyers, who, organized into brigades and technical work teams, will be carrying out the tasks of gathering information from the field and the subsequent analysis of the donation and titling files of the properties.

“Neither the topographic and cadastral survey work, nor the titles will have any cost for the peasants, that will be fully assumed by the Dominican Government through the IAD,” he affirmed.

The head of the IAD clarified that the PNT will be financed with the institution’s resources and those from the Regularization Program, the latter aimed at regularizing irregular occupations of properties of the Dominican Agrarian Institute.

“Our commitment is to grant titles to those who were formally settled by the State on IAD lands; those who occupied without proper authorization must fully assume the cost of regularizing their situation,” he warned.

Castillo Lugo announced that the Titling Plan will be carried out gradually and invited the landowners and their families to stay informed through the institution’s various communication channels.

For the realization of the project, the institution was making contacts with associations and federations of plot owners, the local governments of the demarcations where the settlements are located.