The Survey of India, which was chosen by the central government to digitally map all Indian villages using drones in the next four years, knows that it is a challenging task. The organisation’s in-house capability — both in terms of technology and manpower — will not be enough to achieve the target, and as a result, it’s calling on private companies in the drone ecosystem to assist it. In particular, the Survey of India is looking to release drone procurement tenders of small sizes, so that start-ups find it easy to participate in those, and to hire certain services from these companies to complete the task. This information was revealed by Surveyor General of India, Girish Kumar, during a webinar organised by industry body Drone Federation of India on Thursday. The organisation was selected to carry out this digital mapping of all villages in India under the Svamitva scheme, which was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April. The organisation received necessary regulatory approvals from the civil aviation regulator earlier this month. The claimed idea of the scheme is that these digital maps will help in providing title deeds to owners of residential properties in rural areas. The government claims that holders of land title deeds will be able to use their property for availing loans, and it will also allow to bring those properties under the tax bracket. Under the scheme, over 6 lakh villages are to be digitally mapped over four years, which means that on an…
