Greater Chennai Corporation will soon set up a geographical information system (GIS) database, which will help in strengthening its geographical building mapping data, revenue collection and decision-making for public utility projects.
The corporation has finished mapping 190 of the 200 wards using drones, satellite images and field visits and gathered geographical info such as building details, size in 3D image, permission and owner details.
Soon, an exclusive GIS division will be created, with 82 officials, at a cost of ₹8.3 crore. These officials, including GIS experts, engineers, IT experts and will report to the deputy commissioner (revenue and finance). Vishu Mahajan, DC (R&F), said the corporation has collected data, but now needs a database to store it and special officials to maintain it. “We also need servers, GIS software and GPS devices. The proposal is for operational and maintenance work for the next three years,” he said.
Officials said they will match the GIS-gathered data with the existing information to find out any building deviations. M Kamaraj, who works with GIS project management unit, city corporation, said some of the buildings may have got approval for 3,000sqft, but would have later expanded to 5,000sqft by rising floors or by length, without approval. “This will be caught through our GIS drone, satellite surveys and field visits. Now, we will levy more property tax on them,” he said.
Apart from this, the GIS mapping will also help plan city’s public utility projects such as road-relaying work or storm water drains. GIS expert Dayanand Krishnan said such a database will give the corporation an idea of how much land they need for a project, private land that needs to be procured, details of owners and other technical aspects. “It will also help in gradient analysis for storm water drains,” he said.