Introduction

In the state of Maharashtra, land records are mostly restricted to the agricultural land, whereas, the inhabited areas, termed as ‘Gaothan’ in rural Maharashtra have limited property records. In lieu of this, the Government of Maharashtra (GoM) has initiated city- surveys using drone technology to map properties in Gaothan areas. The Survey of India has provided technical support to the GoM to operate drone, image process and feature extraction in these surveys. The major objective of the project is to establish an accurate and up-to-date property record in Gaothan areas, followed by the issuance of sanad and property cards to the property owners as proof of ownership. This process shall provide a solution to the Government to validate the properties and to improve the collection of property tax in Gaothan areas.

Given that technology is a pivotal component of the project, a team of researchers from the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) visited the sites during the surveys to document the entire survey process, determined the ‘good practices’ and ‘gaps’ of the survey process and the technology used. The team further gave recommendations that can be implemented in similar future projects.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24943/CSMDT07.2020