Drone mapping: One in six villages covered in India, shows data

Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra account for nearly 80 per cent of the 108,444 villages where drone surveys have been conducted

In April 2020, the prime minister announced a new scheme to digitise and map land records. While the government was already deploying drones for crop insurance, the Survey of Villages Abadi and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas (SVAMITVA) was expected to map land data, create maps and digitise land parcels across the country’s 660,000 villages.

The government’s target is to complete the process by 2025. A Business Standard analysis, however, shows that the progress has been slow.

A new geospatial policy was approved last year, so the programme may pick up the pace. But for now, analysis