After 53-year delay, state launches drone-based survey

Karnataka on Thursday announced a technology-driven, drone-based survey of five districts and Bengaluru city, for which it has partnered with the Survey of India.

The first phase of the survey will cover Tumakuru, Hassan, Uttara Kannada, Belagavi, Ramanagara and Bengaluru, which is expected to be finished in two years. The next phase will cover Vijayapura, Kodagu, Dharwad, Dakshina Kannada, Mysuru, Gadag, Davangere and Kalaburagi.

This will be the first such exercise since the last one that was carried out between 1955 and 1966. As per the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, there has to be a survey once every 30 years, according to which the state was to have been surveyed last in 1996.

“We will use drone-based mapping to the accuracy of 5 cm in urban areas and 12.5 cm in rural areas, which has never been done in any state or district,” Surveyor-General of India Lt Gen Girish Kumar told reporters during a formal signing of the memorandum of understanding between the Survey of India and the state government.

“For Bengaluru, we will be doing complete 3D mapping,” he added.

Revenue Minister R V Deshpande said the survey was long overdue. “Drone-based survey will save us manpower, time and cost. Survey in urban areas will cost Rs 15 crore, which the state will bear, whereas it will cost Rs 110 crore in rural areas, which will be funded under the Digital India Land Records Modernisation Program,” he said. “In five years, the entire state will be covered under the drone-based survey. This will help keep land records in order,” he added.

Survey, Settlement and Land Records Commissioner Munish Moudgil said a pilot survey was done in Jayanagar 4th Block in Bengaluru and Ramanagara.

“The pilot achieved whatever we had to prove technically,” he said.

The survey exercise will form the base for the Urban Property Ownership Record (UPOR), a unique titling project under which property owners will be issued a property register (PR) cards that capture spatial details of the property, area of the land, rights on the property (ownership, mortgage, lease etc) and history of transactions.