Telangana Municipal Department Bags Skoch Awards

In a moment of pride for its people, the Telangana government has bagged two Skoch Gold awards for reforms and other works instituted by it in the Municipal Administration Department.

The Municipal Administration Department received this honour in recognition of its efforts in coordinating with the NRSA (National Remote Sensing Centre) for geo-tagging 12 lakh buildings across 72 towns in the state using the Bhuvan satellite.

Apart from being geo-tagged, each building was also marked with its property tax number, enabling easy identification in order to find details such as locality, present conditions, related vacant lands etc. Citizens may now use Bhuvan Net to get details such as name changes, sale records, photographs, encumbrance certificates etc., for greater transparency.

Speaking on the occasion, Municipal Administration Department Director T K Sridevi said that citizens would now have greater, and easier, access to the records of disputes and prohibitions on these lands. Additionally, these advances would help in obtaining information about assets and lands faster, including on buildings being constructed without the requisite permissions, and supported the policy of improving ease of doing business, she said.

Adding that over 20,000 buildings had been brought under the tax net thanks to these reforms, she stated that this was helping towns increase their incomes, giving the example of Nalgonda town where a recent survey on the efficiency of the geographical information system instituted showed that municipal body income had doubled.