The government will use drones to map all properties inside village borders to map residential land ownership, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said during an interaction with sarpanchs from across the country today. Drones will be used to create digital maps of villages, and on the basis of these maps, owners of residential properties in villages will be given a title deed (sampatti card) by respective state governments, according to a video released by the Press Information Bureau. Holders of land title deeds would be able to use their property for availing loans, and it would also allow to bring those properties under the tax bracket.

“Most people in rural India do not have documents for their residential properties. Mapping and survey of inhabited regions in most Indian villages has never been done from the perspective of ascertaining land ownership. Most residential properties in rural areas don’t have proper ownership documents, and providing people with a title deed only can change that”, according to PIB.

#SwamitwaYojana – an initiative to map residential land ownership through drone technology across India; drones will digitally map all properties inside village borders Watch how is this going to revolutionize property record maintenance in Indiahttps://t.co/L1xKTArwk6 — PIB India #StayHome #StaySafe (@PIB_India) April 24, 2020

The project — Swamitwa Yojana — will be piloted in villages in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand, following which, it will be implemented across the country, PM Modi said. He did not give an exact timeframe for implementing the project in all villages. The Union Panchayati Raj Ministry, Panchayati Raj departments of state governments, Department of Revenue, and Survey of India will be involved in the project.