New Delhi [India], March 25 (HBTV): The Ministry of Panchayati Raj, in collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme and the Haryana Institute of Public Administration (HIPA), is organising an International Workshop on Land Governance from March 24 to 29, 2025, at the HIPA Complex in Gurugram, Haryana.

The workshop will bring together delegates from 22 countries across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia to explore innovative approaches to addressing land governance challenges globally. The six-day event will showcase India's pioneering SVAMITVA scheme, which has successfully mapped rural inhabited areas using drone technology to provide legal ownership documents to property owners.

More than 40 senior officials from 22 participating countries, including Turkmenistan, Colombia, Zimbabwe, Fiji, Mali, Lesotho, Sierra Leone, Venezuela, Mongolia, Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Equatorial Guinea, Kiribati, São Tomé and Príncipe, Liberia, Ghana, Armenia, Honduras, Eswatini, Cambodia, Togo, and Papua New Guinea, will exchange best practices on land governance during the workshop.

The event will feature discussions on advancements in land governance and sustainable development, with comprehensive sessions on drone-based land survey techniques, high-resolution mapping, and geospatial technologies for land administration.

Technical sessions will include hands-on demonstrations of drone survey methods, data processing techniques, ground verification processes, and GIS integration. Experts from the Survey of India will conduct field demonstrations of flight planning and drone surveying in a nearby village, offering participants practical exposure to this technology.

The International Workshop on Land Governance will also include field visits and exhibitions to provide participants with hands-on exposure to modern land governance technologies. A Drone Vendors' Exhibition will be held on March 24-25, featuring 10 drone vendors showcasing innovations in drone-based land mapping and survey techniques.

The exhibition will present survey-grade drones for high-precision mapping, advanced drone survey processes, and GIS tools for data-driven land management. State governments will highlight digital innovations in process automation, while demonstrations of the Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) network—established by the Survey of India—will showcase its real-time, high-accuracy land surveying capabilities, providing positioning services with 5 cm accuracy for developmental projects and disaster management.

Industry partners, including the Survey of India, State Land Revenue Departments, National Informatics Centre, Geo-Spatial World, Hexagon, Trimble, Aereo, Marvell Geospatial, Idea Forge Tech, and AWS, will participate as knowledge partners, exhibiting cutting-edge technologies and solutions for land governance.

Additionally, a series of classroom demonstrations will cover drone use cases, ortho-rectified imaging, feature-extracted maps, and ground verification technologies. These sessions will provide participants with insights into high-resolution mapping, data validation, and property card finalisation, enhancing their understanding of modern land governance practices.

The workshop underscores the universal challenge of land governance, highlighting that, according to a 2017 World Bank report, only 30% of the global population holds legally registered land titles. In contrast, India's SVAMITVA scheme has pioneered a comprehensive approach to mapping inhabited rural areas with 5 cm accuracy at a resolution of 1:500, positioning India as a potential model for other nations.

The initiative aims to support Sustainable Development Goals related to land rights, with participants learning from India's SVAMITVA model to empower their citizens with clear land ownership documentation, thus fostering more reliable land administration systems.

(ANI)