Patna, (Bihar Times): Two towns of Bihar, Ara in the
west and Bhagalpur in the east, are among the 158
urban centres chosen by the Union government for the
satellite mapping. The satellite mapping, among other
things, would help check evasion of property tax and
construction of illegal buildings. It will help
various cities in preparing their master plans and
executing detailed town planning. Digital database and
Geographical Information System (GIS) mapping are
being undertaken by Survey of India (SOI).
Apart from the above towns of Bihar, Jamshedpur and
Dhanbad in Jharkhand, Port Blair in Andaman & Nicobar
Islands, Adilabad and Nalgonda in Andhra Pradesh,
Dibrugarh and Nagaon in Assam, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar
in Gujarat, Shimla and Sonal in Himachal Pradesh,
Samba and Rajouri in Jammu and Kashmir, are some
others cities selected for satellite mapping.
Reports say that bigger cities have not been funded by
the Centre under this scheme, It is expected that the
local governments of those cities will initiate such
mapping on their own. Delhi, for example, has launched
a pilot programme on GIS mapping in some parts of the
city. Satellite images for 120 towns in 33 states and
Union Territories have already been procured and
aerial survey is being planned for 142 towns. Many of
these towns, however, are common in both cases. Also,
Survey of India has completed construction of 333
permanent ground control point monuments in 71 towns
in 32 states and Union Territories and 454 monuments
are under observation in 66 towns in 32 states and
Union Territories. The government’s initiative is a
part of the ongoing National Urban Information System
(NUIS).
Urban development secretary M Ramachandran told the
Economic Times recently that the GIS mapping would
help authorities to monitor even individual flats.“Once this mapping is done, one can easily detect how
big a house is, how many rooms it has, and so on. The
tax evasion will be quite difficult then.”
There are several advantages of satellite mapping. For
example land titles will become clearer and it will
pave the way for lowering stamp duties. Cleaner land
titles mean more transparent property transactions
which further implies that the tax revenues of the
government will go up. Apart from this it would help
track ownership of land better and can be of enormous
help for town planning as one would know how much land
to acquire and how much social infrastructure is
needed.
