Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has stressed the role of people’s representatives in liaising with landowners and preventing disputes as the government gears up to kick off the Statewide digital resurvey that has been in the pipeline for nearly six decades.
He was inaugurating a virtual workshop organised on Friday for the leaders of local self-government institutions as part of the preparatory works for the resurvey exercise.
Mr. Vijayan said the government hoped to complete the process within four years with support from all cross-sections. People’s committees will be formed from the district to local levels to plan and execute the project.
Scrutiny of land records
Such panels, which will be headed by elected representatives, will be tasked with soliciting cooperation from landowners and scrutinising their land records prior to launching the survey in their areas. Landowners will also be required to clear their lands of vegetation to facilitate the survey and demarcate boundaries, he said.
He said the State had made a failed bid to launch the resurvey in 1966. Another attempt to revive the massive exercise in 1996 too could not make considerable progress owing to the lack of coordination between various departments.
“The decision to opt for a digital resurvey was made after learning from the mistakes of the previous attempts. The digital resurvey of 89 villages has been completed by using Electronic Total Station and the exercise progressed in 27 others. The remaining 1,550 villages will be resurveyed using advanced technological tools such as Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS), Robotic Total Stations and drones,” he said.
₹807 crore allotted
Presiding over the function, Revenue Minister K. Rajan said the project will be completed in four phases within four years. An allocation of ₹807 crore has been made from the Rebuild Kerala Initiative. Sanction has been accorded for utilising ₹339.48 crore for the first phase of the resurvey exercise.
Local Self-Government Minister M.V. Govindan, Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue and Disaster Management) A. Jayathilak, Director of Survey and Land Records Sreeram Sambasiva Rao and Land Revenue Commissioner K. Biju were among those who participated.
