BENGALURU, 15 JULY

A direct recruitment plan was passed in the Legislative Assembly on Monday to fill vacant posts in the Revenue Department to expedite the processing of the thousands of pending land survey and registration applications in the State.

Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said that operating with only half its staff, and with thousands of applications pending, has raised concerns about land encroachments. The government has approved Rs 23 crore tender for the Autonomous Precision Survey Rover (APSR), which will handle survey stake-out functions and aims to perform land surveys three times faster than a human surveyor.

Currently, the Revenue Department has fewer than 4,700 surveyors, including permanent staff and licensed surveyors.

BJP members alleged that the Revenue Department has been silent about the land encroachments occurring in the state due to the lack of land surveys. Salar News