A ₹807.98-crore project for extending digital resurvey to 1,550 villages in the State, which received Cabinet nod on Tuesday, will be completed over four years in four phases, Revenue Minister K. Rajan said here on Wednesday.
The project signals the State’s departure from the conventional methods of land surveying, and is aimed at unifying land-related documentation under the departments of revenue, survey, and registration. Administrative sanction has been given for the first phase which will cover 400 villages at a cost of ₹339.43 crore under the Rebuild Kerala development programme, the Minister said.
The Department of Survey and Land Records will implement the project with technical support from the Regional Director (Kerala), Survey of India. For the digital resurvey, the department will primarily bank on Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) networks using Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) machines. Twenty-eight base stations will be set up in the State. The resurvey using conventional methods was launched in Kerala in 1966.
Amount for phases
CORS will be used in 60% of the villages, while drone-plus-LIDAR mapping and Electronic Total Station (ETS) systems will be used in 20% locations each. “Four hundred villages will be taken up in the first phase for which ₹339.43 crore has been earmarked. For the second, third and fourth phases, ₹156.17 crore, ₹156.18 crore, and ₹156.18 crore respectively have been provided,” Mr. Rajan said.
The project covers all villages, excluding 87 villages where the exercise was completed using total station surveying solutions and 29 villages where it is in progress. In every village, the government lands will be surveyed first followed by privately owned lands, according to the Minister. Using CORS or LIDAR, one surveyor and one helper can survey four hectares at a time.
Encroachments
The four-year project will enable the issue of Record of Rights (RoR), online services in the department, settlement of land-related disputes and preparation of accurate documentation and sketches pertaining to land. It will also help tackle encroachments on government land, and assist disaster management, Mr. Rajan said.
A State-level project monitoring unit will be formed at the Department of Survey and Land Records. District-level implementation units will be headed by the district collectors. A high-level panel headed by the Chief Secretary will assess the progress of work.
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