============== ALL n' SUNDRY By Valmiki Faleiro ==============
MESS NAMED LAND SURVEY -- 3 (Published: HERALD, Feb 12, 2006) We saw on 29/Jan and 5/Feb how the 1965-77 Goa Survey was botched from word go, partly because it was based on an inaccurate grid, prepared with rudimentary tools in the first quarter of the last Century. And how that mighty mess has been confounded in an ill-executed 21st Century digitizing effort. Never in history did Goa's Land Survey record look clumsier than it does today. Why in this age and time, you may ask, when accurate and affordable land survey systems are available, is Goa's land survey mess not being cleaned up? With an altogether fresh physical survey, starting with a new and accurate grid ... *ab initio*? A "new survey" idea was, indeed, mooted not long ago; by one many consider to be Goa's best ever Chief Minister, Manohar Parrikar. Parrikar got the Land Revenue Code amended to empower Government carry out a fresh survey. But, surprisingly, for the limited purpose of incorporating changes on site that took place after the 1965-77 survey -- NOT to correct past blunders that continue to haunt Goa's survey record, or to exorcise the ghost of *Digitization.* The proposal was not to amend the existing erroneous survey, but only to update the topographic position now available on the ground ... to show new roads, dams, bridges, culverts, houses and the like. You may ask why such data did not already reflect in the survey, when one or the other arm of the very same Government carried out bulk of the physical development? Myriad reasons surpass the word-length of this column. Consider this only by way of an indication: one arm of government, the PWD, acquires land under the Land Acquisition Act and builds roads. But does not incorporate such roads in the Survey Map or the land under them in the Record of Rights. Because, often, land is acquired in one place, or in one alignment, while the road is actually constructed at quite a different place or in a different alignment! One could argue that if the object of the "new survey" were merely to incorporate physical development as now existing, the right option would be a cheaper aerial survey. Why invite outstation land survey agencies, employing accurate survey methods, for a limited purpose? Because, as one suspects, the exercise of incorporating latest physical development in the survey record would also provide backdoor legitimacy to the politicians' favourite vote bank: thousands upon thousands of illegal constructions on public and community-owned land, Goa's ancient *Gaunkarias*, rechristened *Comunidades* by the Portuguese. Tenders were called for the "new survey." The country's top players like *Theovel Surveys* and *Secon* of Bangalore responded. They were asked to demonstrate their working capability with sample surveys. These firms use GPS and digital "Total Stations" -- the fastest and most accurate land surveying systems available. (A nugget of interest: while GPS with earlier satellites had an accuracy of 16 metres, a new European satellite is accurate to a mere one metre ... virtually a pinhead cannot escape the eye in the sky!) The "new survey" implied that highly accurate data obtained via Total Stations (with accuracy of 1 second angularly and 2 cms. linear) in 2006, would be fitted into graphical work done on Plane Tabling (with accuracy of 1/4th of a degree angularly and 40 cms. linear on a scale of 1:2000) in 1965-77, and superimposed on an altogether incompatible grid prepared in 1925! More like fitting a square peg into a round hole. That too, to no conceivable public benefit. What was the point of the exercise if erroneous existing survey maps were not going to be corrected, Kiran Dhingra, the Chief Secretary, thought ... and promptly shot the idea down. We know the price she eventually paid for such temerity! To the question at the outset: when Parrikar demonstrated that Goa could easily afford a "new survey," using the most accurate land survey system available, why not dump the entire 1965-77 sloppy survey and have an accurate new record in place thereof? Why does government fight shy of ordering a re- survey? It is because the current survey record is such a rotten can of worms that no politician or party will open. Like past defective legislations, topped by the Agricultural Tenancy Act -- a laudable piece of welfare legislation, but enacted and implemented in the shoddiest manner. Elected reps know the law is defective, that it not only failed in its avowed objective, but actually proved counter-productive, a disservice to agriculture in the state. Yet, which politician or party will dare touch a populist law? Who will dare open a rotten can of worms? When shall the *aam Goenkar* cease to be politically orphaned? P.S.: We shall revert to the other facet of the Revenue record -- the all- important Record of Rights -- after the break of a few weeks. Let's catch on a few smiles in the interim! (ENDS) ============================================================================== The above article appeared in the February 12, 2006 edition of The Herald, Goa
