Maharashtra government using drones to map villages

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The Maharashtra government is using drones mounted with high resolution cameras to speed up the exercise of mapping villages and towns in the state. The government has launched a pilot project to survey these areas with the help of camera-fitted drones, said a revenue department official.

Mapping was earlier carried out manually, but the drone technology is now changing the way this massive exercise is undertaken. Once extended to other areas and completed, the process is also expected to boost revenue collection for the government. The project was launched in Sonori village in Purandar tehsil of Pune district. "There are 43,000 gaothans (old settlements) in the state, where exact information about government-owned land, open areas and private properties is not available.

It has caused inordinate delay in charing property tax, drafting village or town-centric policy and implementing changes made in land utilisation reservation," he said.

"Till date, the state machinery used to do such surveys manually, which used to be full of errors and time consuming," the officer said. However, deploying drones will drastically cut down on time and also bring more clarity in the exercise.

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