Defence Ministry surveys its land with drones and satellites

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 9

The Ministry of Defence has said a survey of the total of 17.78 lakh acres of land owned by the ministry has been completed. The entire exercise of survey of about 1.61 lakh acres of defence land inside 62 cantonments and 16.17 lakh acres outside the cantonments has been surveyed using technology.

The landholdings are spread across approximately 4,900 locations across the country and some of it is in inaccessible terrain.

Out of the 16.38 lakh acres land that is outside the Cantonments, about 18,000 acres is proposed for deletion from records on account of transfer to other government departments. The survey commenced in October 2018 using survey technologies, besides drone imagery and satellite imagery.

As part of the survey, a project for real time detection of encroachments has been initiated. Pilot test has been carried out on satellite imageries of defence land pockets procured from National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad.

Geo-referenced and digitised shape files are made available to enable quick decision making by officials of the MoD.