Chennai goes high-tech to get property measurements right

Manual measurements of property for tax and other civic purposes may soon be a thing of the past. The revenue department of Greater Chennai Corporation is all set to go high-tech: It plans to purchase differential global positioning system (DGPS) equipment and set up a base station on the top floor of Amma Maligai on the premises of Ripon Buildings to measure new properties. “We will purchase 30 DGPS devices, two for each zone. This is the first time in Tamil Nadu that such a system will be in place in an urban local body. The rover (the instrument) will be placed on four corners of the property for measurement. The system will provide coordinates of the property which will be entered through an application. The rover will send signals to the base station,” said an official. The corporation has sought a loan of ?20cr for this from the World Bank. The system has been tested on the corporation’s premises. “The base station will be linked with satellites and will communicate with the Survey of India,” said an official. It will be run by corporation engineers and staff. The corporation recently implemented GIS mapping system, using drones for surveys to ensure that all properties that are un-assessed were brought under its purview and to correct under-assessment. The civic body hopes to increase its revenue in property taxes by ?500cr after this exercise ends in March, 2019. The project cost the corporation ?6.8cr and it will take a few years for the civic body to curate the data and convert them into 2D and 3D maps.