Resurvey to start from Kasargod: E Chandrasekharan

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The revenue department will launch resurvey activities in the state from Kasargod district on January 26. At a press conference here, revenue minister E Chandrashekharan said resurvey work in Kasargod district would be taken up in 117 villages. All preliminary works including scanning of old land records and triangulation work have been completed. "Kasargod is being given priority as the survey activities in the district are the least,"he said.

Mr Chandrashekharan said the preliminary works would begin in 10 villages of Hosdurg taluk and a total of 8571.62 hectares of land had to be surveyed. Triangulation works had been completed, GPS observations and installation of survey stones too have been carried out. A GPS survey team is camping in Kasargod to make arrangements for the resurvey. After the completion of field work the traverse survey will have to be completed before taking up the detailed survey. Each village will have three survey teams and a total of 30 teams will be deployed in 10 villages .

The minister said resurvey activities in Idukki district would begin in February. Of the 66 villages in Idukki district, survey work had been completed in 37 and the details have been handed over to the revenue administration. The resurvey work in remaining 29 villages in an area spread across 278685 hectares of land, will be taken up soon.

Mr Chandrashekharan said the High Court had directed on August 29, 2016 that resurvey works in Idukki district should be completed within one year and the complaints of the people should be resolved in a time bound manner. The court direction had come in the wake of a petition filed by Idukki District Consumer Vigilance. The minister said that in order to complete the survey in a time bound manner, the revenue department would use latest technology including Total Station Theodolite (TST), an electronic optical instrument used for modern surveying.

The surveying instrument with a rotating telescope is capable of measuring horizontal and vertical angles of the land. He said if everything worked according to plan, the entire resurvey work across the state should be completed within five years. It may be recalled that the government was forced to put on hold the resurvey activities in about 1650 villages in 2012 after a flurry of cases flooded the civil courts and special survey adalats conducted during that period.