As part of the Charcha 2020 dialogues held in May, Omidyar Network India hosted a track on Land and Property Inclusivity, where the #Tech4Land session looked at how geospatial tools can accelerate people’s ability to secure their property rights.
Speakers:
Amarsh Chaturvedi, Co-Founder & director, Transerve Technologies
Ambrish Mehta, Trustee, ARCH-Vahini
Chiranjit Guha, Principal Consultant- Analytics, Foundation for Ecological Security (FES India)
Moderator:
Kshitij Batra, Founder & CEO, Terra Economics Lab
Through this engaging session, experts shared their field experiences on using geospatial tools for better housing, accessing tribal forest rights, and MGNREGA planning.
Here are some quick snapshots and some key points which were discussed during the session:
Amarsh Chaturvedi of Transerve Technologies spoke about the role that geospatial technologies can play in conducting surveys. These smart surveys would enable large scale time-bound primary data collection through the use of digital platforms and geospatial engines. He highlighted the importance of ‘Ground Truthing’ data in building hyperlocal databases for planning and implementation. Such data collection methods have recently been used in mission mode projects like mapping informal settlements (which was done in Odisha to distribute property cards through the Jaaga Mission), cadastral records, and property tax mapping.
Ambrish Mehta shared his experiences through ARCH-Vahini’s field work with Adivasi forest-dwelling communities in South Gujarat and the challenges they faced around securing land rights. He recalled the landmark Forest Rights Act passed in 2006, which acknowledged the land rights of all forest dwelling communities . However, 80% of the claims filed under this Act were rejected by the government. In this context, ARCH-Vahini carried out a GPS-enabled mapping exercise to determine the extents of people’s land parcels. These maps were then superimposed onto satellite imagery to produce detailed village-level maps, showing the boundaries of different plots. These documents were then submitted as evidence to the relevant district offices, verified by the Forest Department.
Getting the claims over their land approved is a challenge for forest -dwelling communities to this day. The use of geospatial and mapping technologies has helped to clear the fog around surveying and mapping exercises, and in many cases aided the recognition and approval of claims over land cultivated by Adivasi communities.
Chiranjit Guha talked about an FES India initiative called India Observatory, which is an open-data platform with a repository of geospatial data, to assist with natural resource conservation efforts on the ground. The platform brings together different datasets, and is freely accessible for multiple stakeholders to aid in data-based analytical decision making at the field-level.
You can watch all sessions of Charcha2020 here.