Sunday 23 January 2011

Is One More Expensive Survey Needed?

Rajiv Chawla, Commissioner of Survey, Settlement and Land Records of Karnataka Government recently announced in Mysore that all properties in Mysore will be surveyed under the Urban Property Ownership Records (UPOR) project to make a GIS database.
Mysore City Corporation has recently completed, at great expense, the survey of all properties in Mysore and the creation of a GIS database. Why are two arms of the state government spending huge amounts to do the same job twice?
MUDA has its own records of properties in Mysore. These records do not agree with MCC records. In all probability, the UPOR database will not agree with either of these. Then we will have 3 mutually conflicting databases which will create confusion all around.
The survey under UPOR project has been farmed out to a private operator under the Public-Private Partnership model. Recent experiences with this model (Voter Photo ID, MCC property survey, Aadhaar card, etc.) does not inspire one with great confidence that the job will be well done. This is because the private operator hires people with no experience in doing this type of work and these novices are given three days training and sent to do the job. That is why so many mistakes happen. People are still trying to get errors in the their Voter photo ID and MCC property data corrected. Problems with Aadhaar cards are just now trickling in.
C.V.Nagaraj, Mysore Grahakara Parishat