Drone surveys to help civic body in Gzb to locate encroachments
GHAZIABAD: The Ghaziabad municipal corporation will introduce drone surveys to keep a tab on permanent encroachments in its jurisdiction area. Officials said that the drone surveys will supplement the physical surveys, which are being carried out across 100 residential wards with the help of geographic information system.
Earlier, the corporation chalked out a micro plan for the removal of temporary encroachments in all the five zones in Ghaziabad and officials are now planning to rope in a drone-survey agency to keep a tab on permanent encroachments over government lands that are under its custody.
The civic agency has already completed a GIS-based survey earlier this year. According to the official records, the corporation has a total of 394,417 properties under the ambit of property tax in its jurisdiction area and estimates that about 185,895 new properties are likely to be added on the basis of the GIS survey.
“Physical verification of properties is going on in residential wards. We have planned to supplement the process with a drone-survey, which will keep a tab on permanent encroachments. This includes about 100 hectares of government land. In the past one year, we freed up about 60 hectares of government land, which had a valuation of about ₹1,800 crore,” said Mahendra Singh Tanwar, Ghaziabad municipal commissioner.
Overall, the corporation has about 500 hectares of government land in its jurisdiction area and about 400 hectares has been identified as ‘abadi’(land lying within the inhabited areas), while the rest is earmarked for land acquisition.
“The physical and drone surveys will help to keep a check on permanent encroachments. If there is any deviation, we will carry out demolition or removal. An agency will soon be selected for the purpose of taking up the drone-survey as encroachments are rampant in the city,” Tanwar added.
The corporation is also carrying out removal of temporary encroachments with the help of bulldozers. It is also removing ramps, barricades and other temporary constructions from the roadsides. It has also prepared a roster and appealed to people to remove encroachments, so that cleaning of drains becomes less cumbersome before the advent of the monsoon next month.