Land Administration In India Goes The Tech Way With Drones

Drones are fast emerging as critical technological devices for various administrative departments responsible to oversee the real estate sector in India. Of late, the Panvel City Municipal Corporation (PCMC) decided to deploy drones to gauge usage of land and finalise its master plan. Over two dozen specially-designed short-range drones have already been at work in the National Capital Region (NCR) to help develop digital maps of the various districts in the region, with geo-referencing at land holding levels. The entire process will augment the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) platform being developed by the administration.

The usage of drones will rule out the errors emanating from manual land surveys and data entries. The digital maps will provide an accurate picture of land usage in a given area and the whole exercise could be well-documented for future references.

This development will also help control land disputes arising out of issues related to land allocation, demarcation and ownership. The civil courts in India are flooded with such litigations.

Also read: Why Official Land Records Are Key To Real Estate Growth

The governments, both at Central and state levels, have been trying to digitise land records for a long time, however, the process is fraught with challenges and complexities. So far, digitization of land records was limited to the post-survey stage and hardly there is any reliable process or technology to ascertain the usage of land in a given area.

The deployment of drones will help navigate these complexities. After all, human eyes can't get a bird-eye view of a land parcel like drones. Drones will capture data through advanced cameras and convert the footage into Autocad drawings with unmatched precision.  

Thus, the survey done through drones will be far more accurate than any other mode and this will automatically eliminate the possibilities of false claims and undue litigation to a great extent.

Development of digital land maps will further connect with central databases storing critical information concerned with land usage and ownership. According to sources, the government may then link land ownership with Aadhar card and provide unique land parcel IDs to the owners. All such information could be made available on a centralized portal, taking India in the league of nations that are known for their transparent public information systems and processes.

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