Use GIS for girdawari, Punjab officials told

Ruchika M Khanna

Chandigarh, April 3

Under pressure from farm unions over the early release of compensation for crop loss, the Revenue Department has asked districts officers to use GIS (geographic information system)-based technology to conduct the special girdawari of fields in a time-bound manner, using Avenza maps.

50% posts of Patwari vacant

• There are 1,700 patwaris working in the state, against a sanctioned strength of 3,660
• ACS (Revenue) KAP Sinha said 1,000 patwaris would be completing their training and joining duties this year
• “I have also sent a request for filling 710 posts of patwari at the earliest,” he said

However, the e-girdawari system is difficult to adopt because of lack of seamless connectivity in farmlands. As a result, barring few places, the patwaris are still going in for physical verification at places where the maps of ‘khewat’ and ‘khasra’ are drawn physically and the crops and damage caused to them in recent rains are mapped manually.

This system ensures that the officials actually go to the fields for assessment of crop loss, and do not resort to the alleged previous practice of making reports without proper verification, often under guidance of their political bosses.

With almost 50 per cent posts of patwari lying vacant, the e-girdawari system is helping the state conduct the assessment of damage to crops faster.

At places where the system is working, officials are visiting the fields where the app records the latitude and longitude of the field once location service is activated and a picture of the field is uploaded. This helps the app to record the khewat and the khasra number of the fields where the standing crop has been damaged.

Preliminary revised estimates of damage point out that standing crop on 13.60 lakh hectares of area has been damaged. Gurlal Singh, a patwari posted in Midda village of Malout, said he has been using this e-girdawari system, which has helped in faster assessment of crop loss.

In Bathinda, Patwari Gurmat Singh said that in fields where the damage was just 10-15 percent, the app was unable to record the quantum of damage and physical verification was needed.

Officials said the system has been adopted in Fazilka and Muktsar, besides parts of Bathinda district, where extensive damage to crops was reported. Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue) KAP Sinha said instructions have been issued to the DCs in all rain-hit districts to adopt the new technology for faster assessment of crop damage. “The government is committed to give compensation by Baisakhi. We have funds under the State Disaster Relief Fund to release the compensation immediately,” he said.