The remarks were made as the minister chaired a high-level review meeting of the “Survey of India” at the Parliament House. SVAMITVA, short for Survey Village and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas, is a village property mapping service aided by drone surveys carried out by the government that allows self-mapping of land in hinterlands.
Photo: SNS
Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Tuesday praised the Centre’s SVAMITVA scheme for reducing villagers’ dependence on revenue officers and patwaris, saying it empowers them to take charge of their destiny.
The remarks were made as the minister chaired a high-level review meeting of the “Survey of India” at the Parliament House. SVAMITVA, short for Survey Village and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas, is a village property mapping service aided by drone surveys carried out by the government that allows self-mapping of land in hinterlands.
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He appreciated the National Geospatial Policy, 2022, calling it a gamechanger, since it provides India’s official playbook for how India will collect, share, and apply mapping data — whether from satellites, drones, surveys, or other location-based tools — for economic, environmental, and governance purposes.
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Singh added that, in collaboration with the Registrar General of India, the harmonization of boundaries has been completed. This means all official maps from various sources — revenue records, landownership maps, satellite imagery, and survey data — have been cross-checked, matched, and aligned to ensure that the boundaries of plots, villages, districts, and other units are consistent across datasets.
The Minister stressed the importance of the Survey of India’s technical expertise in implementing flagship schemes such as SVAMITVA, AMRUT Mission, Smart Cities, Digital Twin Mission, and NAKSHA. He said plans are underway to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning to upgrade technology, create synergies with other science and government departments, and help them fully tap the department’s world-class facilities.
Singh also lauded the department for setting up Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) and creating a national asset register at the state, district, and taluka levels. Making this data available to tehsildars, he said, would significantly improve citizen-centric service delivery.
The meeting was attended by Department of Science & Technology Secretary Abhay Karandikar, Surveyor General of India Hitesh Kumar S. Makwana, and other senior officials from the DST and the Survey of India.
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