India to make digital maps of all villages

India to make digital maps of all villages

TOPIC: Governance

Context- India plans to prepare digital maps of all its 6,00,000 villages and pan-India 3D maps will be prepared for 100 cities, under updated geospatial policy guidelines.

• The updated guidelines help private companies prepare a variety of maps without approvals from a host of Ministries and make it easier to use drones and develop applications via location mapping.

Concept-

• An ongoing scheme, piloted by the Panchayati Raj Ministry, called SVAMITVA was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April 2020.
• So far, drone surveys have covered close to 1,00,000 villages and maps of 77,527 villages had been handed over to States. Property cards have been distributed to around 27,000 villages, according to current information on the SVAMITVA portal.

SVAMITVA Scheme:

• SVAMITVA (Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas) scheme is a collaborative effort of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, State Panchayati Raj Departments, State Revenue Departments and Survey of India.
• It aims to provide an integrated property validation solution for rural India.
• It is a scheme for mapping the land parcels in rural inhabited areas using drone technology and Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS).
• The mapping will be done across the country in a phase-wise manner over a period of four years – from 2020 to 2024.