This will generate formal ownership records, ensure land use planning, create liquid assets for villagers, resolve disputes and help move towards clearer land titles.
With the success of the pilot project where drones were used to map residential areas in a Pune village, the state government is all set to use these unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to conduct the first-ever spatial survey across the state.
This will generate formal ownership records, ensure land use planning, create liquid assets for villagers, resolve disputes and help move towards clearer land titles.
In over 50 years, since the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code, 1966, just 5,000 of the over 43,000 villages in Maharashtra have been surveyed, albeit manually, to map out privately-owned and government properties, barren and open land. In March, the state used a Survey of India (SOI) drone to survey Sonori village in Pune's Purandar taluka to test its accuracy. Surveys of gaothans (residential areas in villages) are undertaken once they cross a threshold population of 2,000.
"The pilot project was successful. Now, the state government is considering a proposal to survey all gaothans (using UAVs)," S Chockalingam, Settlement Commissioner and Director of Land Records told DNA.
An official said this would enable villagers to get sanads (property or ownership rights) for their residential holdings and also demarcate government and open lands. "This will help update property tax records. It will help us plan infrastructure projects like laying water pipelines and sewage systems," he explained, adding that the Sonori experience had shown that little ground-truthing was needed after the drone surveys.
"We are planning to cover the over 38,000 villages in one go, and hope that the project will be completed in three years. Rs 100 crore have been sought from the state government as seed money for payments, including those to the SOI. The money for the project will be recovered as we will charge money from property holders for the sanad, thus making this project self-sustaining," the official said.
Surveying a village will require around Rs 3 lakh and drones will generate high-resolution images that can be rectified, digitised and verified through a field survey. This will be less time-consuming than conventional methods.
In villages where such surveys have not been undertaken, gram panchayats maintain registers of property, but no spatial information exists.
CHECK POINT
- Maharashtra has 43,665 inhabited and uninhabited villages.
- In the survey at Sonori village, which has a 6.23 hectare gaothan, boundary marks were put around properties using A-4 size papers, stuck on cardboard for demarcation, doing away with the need for physical measurement unless there was a tree camouflage.
- Drones have an accuracy of 8-10cm versus 12.5cm for costlier aerial surveys, using aircrafts and 40cm for satellite surveys.
- Gaothans were originally classified as wastelands, with only agricultural land being taxed before and during the British era.
- The property tax concept was born after the advent of local self governments, during the tenure of Lord Ripon. This was initially based on a per-head basis rather than an area occupied.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
 "Drone")
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}