High-resolution Maps of India   Link

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Governments have begun the mammoth exercise of making high-resolution maps for the entire country. The Survey of India (SOI), the national mapping agency, has been tasked with preparing digital maps that will offer very high accuracy. The mapping process was attempted in 2008 at a cost of Rs 5,400cr but states, which were tasked under the programme, couldn’t make much headway in terms of accuracy standards. Then in 2017-18, SOI pitched in. The process has started in Haryana, Maharashtra, and Karnataka says the Surveyor General of India. "We are flying drones that have two GPS devices, one above and one below, and getting positional accuracy of just 5 cms. The resolution of the map will be 5 cms or better". 

Villagers don't have any record of ownership. They only have loosely recorded notes or 'parchi', and other states have no records at all,” Kumar said. SOI has carried out a mapping exercise in Maharashtra, and on this basis ownership certificates have been registered and handed over to the villagers. This helped them take loans for renovation of their houses, for example, because banks do not consider 'parchi' records as valid. SOI is carrying out a similar activity in Haryana. 

Land records have never been updated because it is a laborious and time-consuming physical process involving a patwari for measuring a piece of land. "But patwaris were not given adequate resources. So, they maintain a log or 'lattha' which is updated manually. We are giving every patwari a map of his area along with a rover. This will lead to a real-time and precise change in property records”. The patwari just has to hold the rover ( equipment designed to receive and transmit signals) and walk around the dimension of the property and return to the starting point. The system will automatically update the records. The entire process takes around 10-20 minutes. The system is based on continuous operating reference stations or CORS. 

The new high-resolution maps will also make road navigation better. “The new 1:500 scale maps will tell us what is the actual width of the road, whether it is motorable, whether cars can go inside or only scooters can go. People will not know this using the existing maps and sometimes get stuck. High-accuracy resolution network will be made available on the new online maps and whatever information the common man needs will be put in them.” Kumar said SOI is going to buy not less than 500 drones for the project. It is training existing staff for the purpose and letting go of cadres that work on old techniques. SOI is also hiring fresh people with a higher-education background and from day one they are exposed to modern technology. "We have changed the mindset of people but it took us some time. But now people are geared up and the entire staff is working well". 

Funding is an issue here as with all government projects. Fortunately, states have pitched in and agreed to take the project forward. “In the case of Haryana, Maharashtra, and Karnataka we are getting funding. The MoU for Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Andaman is ready. So we can combine funding from different sources”. Kumar is optimistic that by 2024, high-resolution maps will be available for the entire country.

Digitalising land records   Link

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Drones are flying at regular intervals to quietly capture images of the land below. From buildings to farmland, roads, and lakes – the drones are mapping the area as part of a joint initiative by the Karnataka government and the Centre to digitally map the country. The project is an ambitious initiative to create high-resolution digital maps of the country. Karnataka’s revenue department, in turn, is using the images to create digital maps and link ownership records of every piece of property.

With the advent of technology Survey of India, along with state and city government agencies, have started using satellite images to map properties and create very accurate images. The evolution of drone technology has opened up new possibilities in land surveying. Taking a cue from the three states which approached it for the survey, the agency sees an opportunity to create a repository of drone images across India, similar to the repository of satellite images by the Indian Space Research Organisation. 

Union secretary to MoST says a complete digital map of India will be very useful for the Centre as it can incorporate all types of records including land details, socio-economic data, road network, etc. "While the accuracy of satellite images is 30-40 cm, drone images are as low as 5 cm. This is precision that we want for the digital maps,” says Surveyor General of India, Girish Kumar. 

The magnitude of the project that SOI has taken up with the three states is huge. It has procured 30 drones so far and plans to increase the fleet to 300 soon. Haryana has achieved much progress in the survey work, while Maharashtra has limited the survey to only villages in the first phase. The work in Karnataka is more complex as both urban and rural areas including Bengaluru will be surveyed in the first phase itself. The exercise involves capturing images, corroborating it with the ground survey data and then developing it into a high-resolution 3-D map. It is more than mere mapping, as Karnataka is working on developing geo-referenced land records based on drone images. 

In the pilot which was carried out in Karnataka, officials said that they have compared the dimensions of drone sketches with the actual dimensions in the field and have found the images to be satisfactory. Five districts in Karnataka have been chosen for drone mapping and to develop geo-referenced land documents in the first phase, and the work is expected to be completed by the end of 2020. 

In a country where courts are clogged with land disputes, the best use of the drone survey could be to resolve land-related litigations. According to an estimate, about 2.5 million hectares of land in India are under dispute and 25% of the cases decided by the Supreme Court are of land conflicts. 

“Today, land records are beyond comprehension for people. But, using the drone survey data, we want to develop a digitised map - similar to Google Maps - for every piece of land. A person can actually visualise the property and the boundary,” said Munish Moudgil, Survey, Settlement, and Land Records commissioner, Karnataka. The new system allows the surveyor -- carrying a connected device continuously operating reference stations -- to walk precisely on the property boundary, which until now was challenging, especially on agricultural land. “Any changes made to the property thereon will be continuously updated,” Moudgil said. 

Since land ownership records in India are private documents and are presumptive in nature, the generation of digitised property ownership cards based on the drone survey could see a shift in the nature of land ownership from presumptive to conclusive titles. “A project like this can dramatically alter the landscape of computerisation of land records. A land information system can be created in a short span of time and in a cost-effective manner, eventually serving the public at large,” said ESRI India president Agendra Kumar. ESRI is the country’s leading Geographic Information System (GIS) software and solutions provider. 

Other states are experimenting with survey and digitisation of land records based on satellite images of ISRO. Rajasthan is re-surveying 12 districts through satellite imagery. “We have already procured satellite images. The next step is to auto-rectify these, images and process and superimpose them on already digitised old Cadastral maps,” said Mahendra Kumar Parakh, additional commissioner, Settlement. Cadastral maps show the extent, value and ownership of land.

Since the satellite-based survey in Rajasthan has so far been limited to villages, agricultural landowners are quite comfortable with the accuracy of the satellite image. Others think differently. “Accuracy level of the drone survey and the creation of digitised land records will be a boon to resolve land disputes. Since courts have considered satellite images as valid proof in many litigations in the past, the drone survey images could now as well replace satellite images,” said M Jayachandran, project director, Karnataka State Remote Sensing Applications Centre.

Besides generating geo-referenced land ownership documents and resolving land conflict, the drone data is expected to be useful at various levels. “The data created through this project will be usable for many other applications, like land-use planning, water resources etc. Additionally, this project can offer significant economic and governance benefits to states as there will be much higher transparency in land records,” Kumar of ESRI said.

Yet, a survey of this magnitude is not devoid of challenges. Weather is one such. Survey of India officials say that they did not fly drones for months in Karnataka due to extremely unpredictable weather. “We could not fly drones during rains. At one point, a crash happened,” an official said. Despite limitations, subject experts hope that drones could be the next big thing for surveying properties.

“Every technology, be it satellite images, aerial survey, or drone survey, comes with merits and limitations. The advantage of satellite imagery is that it can cover a larger distance in a short period of time and weather is not a factor, unlike drones. But, accuracy and cost-effectiveness are the advantages of drones,” Jayachandran said.

Another challenge is capacity building for processing and managing of data. “These drones will generate terabytes of data. Investment is needed on setting up a system, be it data processing, software, hardware to process data,” Jayachandran said. Kumar agrees, "It is essential to meet the processing requirements to complement the data collection activity. Also, the requirement of trained manpower will be an important factor for the execution of such projects.”