J&K starts drone survey of residential lands in villages to issue property cards

The Jammu and Kashmir government has initiated the process for drone survey of residential land in all the villages across the Union Territory and will soon issue property cards to its owners.
The exercise was undertaken by the government under Centre’s scheme ‘Svamitva’ initiative. ‘Svamitva’, a Central Sector Scheme (CSS) of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, was launched by the Prime Minister on National Panchayati Raj Day on April 24 this year.

Official sources said that the ‘Svamitva’ Scheme is aimed for establishment of ownership of property in rural inhabited areas, by mapping of land parcels using drone technology and providing ‘Record of Rights’ to village household owners with issuance of legal ownership cards (Property cards/Title deeds) to the property owners.

Notably, earlier the digitization of agricultural land records was some eight years ago by the government and the exercise is already underway and may be completed in the next six months.

The digitization scheme of agricultural land was started in India in the year 2000 and was introduced in Jammu and Kashmir in the year 2013-14.

However, in an order issued on Thursday under ‘Svamitva’ initiative, multifarious aspects like facilitating monetisation of properties and enabling bank loan; reducing property related disputes and comprehensive village level planning will be taken into consideration.

“The government has constituted a panel for preparation of notification for Abadi (residential) Survey and Record Operation Regulation 2021 and Property Card,” sources said and added that the committee comprises six members and will be headed by Rajesh Sharma, Custodian General J&K.

The committee will frame the notification with Rules descriptive of the process, procedures and role clarity at each stage of the Abadi survey, they said and added, “sanction is accorded to constitution of a committee comprising six officers of Revenue Department for preparation of Notification for Abadi Survey and Record Operation Regulation 2021 and property card.”

The order is issued by Vijay Kumar Bidhuri, Commissioner Secretary to the Government, Revenue Department.

As per the record, the officers include Rajesh Sharma, Custodian General, J&K as Chairman, Rishpal Singh, Additional Commissioner FC, Office as a member, Kuldeep Krishan Sidha, (Addl. Secretary to Government) as a member, Assistant Commissioner (Central) office of Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir/Jammu, as a member, Muzaffar Ahmed Malik, (Deputy Secretary to Government as a member and Raies Ahmed, ACR, Srinagar as committee members.

“The committee shall frame the notification with rules descriptive of the processes, procedures and role clarity at each stage of the Abadi Survey and will also look into the essence of the guidelines of the SVAMITVA issued by the Centre shall be the core of the framework to be arrived at by the Committee,” they said.

However, the order further read that the Committee can seek the guidance from any institution, forum, state or an officer as it may deem to be appropriate and the chairman can co-opt any other officer as a member of the Committee to be appropriate.

“The Committee shall submit the draft Regulations or Notification within 15 days from the date of its constitution”, the order read.

Meanwhile an administrative official said that the Government of India across the country including Jammu and Kashmir in 2020, under the banner of Survey of India after approval from DGCA for high definition aerial mapping of villages in India using drones, the mapping agency got permission for the purpose under the SVAMITVA scheme of Ministry of Panchayati Raj which stands for ‘Survey of villages and mapping with improvised technology in village areas’.

The target is to map India’s over 6.6 lakh villages by Dec 2024 in India.

“Software is already available with NIC and the digitization as per SVAMITVA scheme will be aggressively begun in all districts of Jammu and Kashmir,” he added.

“We have already told the Deputy Commissioners of respective districts that instead of manually maintaining records like Map/Jamabandi/Girdawari, upload them online and later the software will be provided to them for further action,” he said.

The objective of the SVAMITVA scheme is to create accurate land records for property rights, direct benefit transfers and panchayat level planning.