Drones To Map 700 Assamese Villages

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Out of a total of 22,724 villages in Assam, 700 villages remain to be mapped as on date, leading to repeated hurdles in executing government projects and transacting land. 

Then, there are border issues with neighbouring states and a country as well, that need permanent resolution. And without maps, boundaries have no meaning. 

Deploy The Drones

To address this long standing problem, the government of Assam has deployed drones to do detailed aerial surveys and help the administration demarcate borders of 700 odd villages with other states. 

For this huge task, the Survey of India is providing the drones, while the Kamrup Administration and Assam Survey will be doing the actual flying and mapping.

The Backstory

Through the 1960s and 1970s, a major portion of Assam's villages were mapped conventionally by cartographers. However, many villages with interstate borders as well as borders with Bangladesh were left unmapped. 

To finally demarcate the true borders today, mutual sign offs with bordering states need to happen and then the data from the drones can be used to draw the final lines. As of now, both these processes are concurrent. 

Progress Report

🎙 Pankaj Tiwari, Principal, Assam Survey and Settlement Training Centre told the press, "Once the pilot project (already underway) in Singimari is over, there will be a massive mapping exercise in Dibrugarh and Tinsukia, where the target is to map about 600 revenue villages."

We reckon the drones will be flying over Assam for the next year or more as there is a lot of ground to cover and the terrain is not exactly amicable everywhere.