A representational photo of a drone being used for survey of land. The SVAMITVA Scheme uses drones and special mapping tools to clearly mark property boundaries.
| Photo Credit: T. Vijaya Kumar
The government of Karnataka has scrapped the Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas (SVAMITVA) in Dakshina Kannada district after covering just 19.19% of the region.
On February 3, Union Minister of Panchayat Raj Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh told the Lok Sabha that of 422 villages in Dakshina Kannada, drone survey was completed in 81 villages (19.19%), and 2,605 property cards were issued in those 81 villages.
“…The State (Karnataka) Government has informed that the remaining villages in Dakshina Kannada district have not been taken up under the SVAMITVA Survey due to the reason that this district does not have the Gramathana, or compact habitation clusters. The habitations have a highly scattered settlement pattern, which does not meet the requirement for SVAMITVA habitation level drone mapping and parcel delineation.”
The Ministry has witnessed slow progress of drone flying, ground truthing, and distribution of property cards in Karnataka, the Minister said.
The SVAMITVA is targeted to be completed by March 2026, he said in response to an unstarred question by Captain Brijesh Chowta, member of Parliament, Dakshina Kannada.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the SVAMITVA on April 24, 2020 on the National Panchayat Raj Day. The SVAMITVA Scheme provides legal ownership of rural residential land using drone-based surveys. The scheme helped people in villages get legal ownership papers for the houses and land they live on. It used drones and special mapping tools to clearly mark property boundaries.
The scheme was launched as many village homes and land in India were never properly recorded. Without legal documents, people couldn’t prove ownership, or use their property to get bank loans, or government help. This lack of records slowed down the economic growth of rural areas and led to frequent land disputes. To solve this, the SVAMITVA Scheme gave people legal ownership papers, helping them secure their rights.
The SVAMITVA Scheme was implemented by the Survey of India (SoI) with the National Informatics Centre Services Inc. (NICSI) as the technology partner.
Published – February 03, 2026 04:56 pm IST
