Karnataka govt hands out largest drone-based land parcel mapping contract

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Geospatial organisations Allterra and NeoGeo said on Wednesday that they have collaboratively won the "largest-ever" drone-based land parcel mapping contract through an open tender process from the Karnataka government.

The project covers an area of 68,000 SQ. KM. and 10 districts in Karnataka Gadag, Koppal, Kodagu, Chamarajanagar, Chikkamagaluru, Vijayapura, Yadgir, Raichur, Bidar, and Kalaburagi, the companies said in a statement.

Both companies have chosen Aereo (formerly Aarav Unmanned Systems) as their technology partner for this project, which will be done using Aereo's state-of-the-art drone solutions.

This work envisages deployment of approximately 60 survey-grade 'PPK' (Post Processed Kinematic) drones to capture high-resolution images to generate maps with a resolution better than 5 cm per pixel, it said.

At full scale, the fleet of drones will be mapping an approximate area of 1,75,000 acres in a single day on an average.

Furthermore, the Survey Settlement and Land Records (SSLR) department will be using these Ortho-Rectified Images (ORIs) to create digital land parcel maps.

"These digital maps will play a critical role for updating landing ownership records, ground truthing and enabling infrastructure development across the state", the companies said.

Allterra's MD, Pradeep Rathor, said with this project, India enters a new age of geospatial data collection, processing, and implementation. "Using Aereo's drone solutions to capture high resolution and accurate data we will help create assets that have immense use across sectors", he said.

NeoGeo CEO, G V Sreeramam said it is the biggest land parcel mapping project in the world and is a leap forward in land record digitisation and development. "Along with our trusted partner, Aereo, we will collect high resolution GIS data, process the data and deliver at highest quality standards in the defined timeframe", he added.

Aereo co-founder and CEO Vipul Singh said: This is a landmark project for India and the drone industry. 'Large Scale Mapping' is the need of the hour to fast-track the digitisation of land records in urban and rural areas. Through our drone solutions, we aim to deliver immense value to our partners and enable the Karnataka government to create ultra-high resolution digital survey maps that have multi-sector applications.