‘Geo-tagging of constructions in Wadala to be completed soon’

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) informed the Bombay high court (HC) on Thursday that the satellite mapping of all constructions in Wadala is expected

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) informed the Bombay high court (HC) on Thursday that the satellite mapping of all constructions in Wadala is expected to be completed in six weeks. The geo-tagging will help BMC keep a tab on unauthorised construction.

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Senior advocate Anil Sakhare, who represented BMC, told the bench of chief justice Pradeep Nandrajog and justice Bharati Dangre that the Maharashtra Remote Sensing Applications Centre at Nagpur had sought some additional information about the constructions in the area, and the work is expected to be completed in six weeks.

He was responding to a suo-motu public interest litigation (PIL) taken up by the court after various civic bodies expressed inability to tackle the menace of illegal constructions. The court had expressed the urgent need for use of modern technology like satellite mapping to control the peril. Pursuant to the directions, the state selected Wadala for the pilot project. This will be replicated in other areas in Mumbai and urban parts of Maharashtra.

During the course of hearing on the PIL, the bench expressed displeasure over the civic body’s approach – to prefer artificial intelligence over human intelligence. The judges said there was no dearth of data in India, but every time the authorities chose to gather data afresh, instead of sharing it with other authorities from a common pool.