Tuesday, 05 October 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
The survey of residential and non-residential buildings with drones using Geographic Information System (GIS) will start from this week in the four urban local bodies (ULBs) in Uttarakhand under the Urban Development Directorate (UDD). The step is likely to increase the revenue collection of property tax by two to four times and the details of all the properties will be available online from the year 2023. The urban planner of the UDD, Priya Bharadwaj informed that all the selected ULBs, which are the municipal corporations of Dehradun, Haridwar, Haldwani and Rudrapur, have received permission from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the local authorities like respective district administrations and police to operate drones.
There are also some restricted zones in the corporations where flying drones is not allowed by the authorities like Secretariat, Forest Research Institute (FRI) and Indian Military Academy (IMA) in Dehradun. However, Bharadwaj said that the directorate will use satellite images at such locations for a thorough analysis of such buildings. She said that though there were certain issues due to the Covid-19 curfew this year, the first phase of the project is still going on as per the plan. She informed that the door to door survey has already started in the selected ULBs for additional details like electricity and water connection, total rooms, kitchens and toilets seats etc to get complete data of the buildings.
Besides this, the directorate will also identify things like roads, electric poles and dustbins which can be a revenue source for the government. The collected data will also be used to generate a unique property identification number in order to provide necessary facilities to the locals of a certain area. An App has also been developed to update all the information collected through the surveys in all the selected ULBs in the first phase, stated the urban planner. She said, “The property tax submitted in the municipal corporations is based on the self-assessment of the properties by the owners and physical verification is not possible by ULBs every time. Many also fail to deposit tax every year. Such issues lead to heavy financial losses for the local bodies but with the GIS, all the property information will be available online which will increase the revenue collection by two to four times.” She also disclosed that the directorate has selected 10 ULBs for the second phase of the project. She said, “We have selected four ULBs from Kumaon region which are Kashipur, Almora, Nainital and Pithoragarh and six from Garhwal region that include Rishikesh, Kotdwar, Roorkee, Mussoorie, Pauri and Chamoli for the second phase which will commence soon too.”
