In an effort to combat land encroachments in the national capital, Delhi Development Authority (DDA), steered by Lt Governor/Chairman, DDA V K Saxena, on Thursday signed a tripartite memorandum of understanding(MOU)with Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), and Survey of India (SoI) to carry out drone survey to determine current status of land in the city, DDA officials said on Friday.
Giving details, they said the MoU aims to generate geospatial data by survey and mapping activities which will act as base for integration of data of DDA, MCD and various other departments in NCT of Delhi including Revenue Department, Housing Department, Urban Development, PWD, Irrigation Department, Environment Department, Agriculture Department, Forest Department, Disaster Management, to maximize resource utilization and ensure comprehensive coverage of all areas under their respective jurisdictions.
The scope of the work in the MoU includes Data Acquisition, Geo-referencing of existing Cadastral Maps with ORI and Vectorisation, Vectorisation and Linking of Layout Plan (LoP) with geo-referenced vector data of existing cadastral maps, Creation of Topographic Template, Resurvey for Plot Boundary/Property for updation and collection of ownership data, Digitalisation of data/records of various departments for integration with administrative boundary/topographical feature, Storage and management of data acquired/generated, Creation of LIS/GIS ready data, Development of Geo-Portal, Training of officials.
With the signing of this MoU, it is expected that both DDA and MCD will be able to better identify encroachments, unauthorized constructions, and change detection in their respective jurisdictions which will enable timely decision making and result in prompt and swift action, thereby helping in planned development of Delhi as per MPD.
Officials said the Lt. Governor, who had been faced with lack of concrete knowledge with regards to status of various government lands in several review meetings chaired by him had been consistently flagging the lack of real ground status and personally monitored the entire development, bringing the three agencies together.
In the month of August 2024 itself, two meetings were conducted under his chairmanship on the issue. This absolute lack of clarity and actual ground status had been flagged by different Courts that had also instructed the land owning agencies to adopt advanced technological solutions to map the actual status of land in the National Capital and encroachment on government lands.
In the penultimate meeting this month, Saxena was shown the results of a trial run that had been conducted over an area of 50 sq. kms. The results had been very encouraging, with high resolution images of even 1x1” area being mapped clearly by the drones.
