VIJAYAWADA: A comprehensive land re-survey would be taken up, with state-of-the art technology, before the distribution of house pattas on the coming Ugadi festival. This was disclosed by Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, during a review meeting held with the Revenue Department officials here on Wednesday.
The re-survey became necessary as most of the land records in the state have either been misplaced or lost after 1980.
The Chief Minister has directed the officials to provide house pattas to all the eligible beneficiaries by next Ugadi festival. Rovers, robots and satellite imagery, GPS and other modern-day equipment would be used to identify and map government lands.
Comprehensive land re-survey will be the first of its kind in the state with modern technology being put into use as done in the US, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. The exercise would be done with a control centre and 75 base stations working round-the-clock to cover 3,000 villages at a time.
The acquired data would not only be useful to farmers but will also be useful for mines, forest, agriculture, irrigation, police and other departments.
The officials informed the Chief Minister that so far, 23,448 acres of land have been identified and it is being surveyed to find out if it is suitable for housing. Out of the identified land, 20,800 acres are in the rural areas and 2,580 acres are in urban areas. The Chief Minister directed the officials to send the village volunteers to identify eligible beneficiaries.
The officials told the Chief Minister that there are around 14.06 lakh people waiting to receive house pattas in the rural areas and 12.69 lakh people in the urban areas are waiting for house pattas.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister reviewed the functioning of the Township and Infrastructure Development Corporation (TIDCO) and directed the officials to see that there is no corruption in the construction of houses in the urban areas and also instructed them to take the advise of experts.
When the Chief Minister said that there should be a downtrend in the rates when sand and land are being provided free of cost and cement is being given at a subsidy, the officials said that new rates would be finalised by month-end and reverse tenders would be called for next month.
Meanwhile, the government has decided to conduct eye tests for the needy under YSR Kanti Velugu programme from October 10. Eye operations would be conducted to those in need and spectacles will also be provided to them.
The government will extend medicare in 150 hospitals located in Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai to Arogya Sri cardholders in the state from November. All the government hospitals would be upgraded to A-Plus category and efforts have been made to call tenders to take up repairs in the existing hospitals.
The government has also decided to provide health cards to all by taking up a pilot project in West Godavari district and extending it to other districts in a phased manner.
