The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : GIS mapping to aid photo rolls coverage in city

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 24, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

GIS mapping to aid photo rolls coverage in city

R.K. Radhakrishnan

Property tax strategy sought to be extended to voter list

BIRD'S EYE VIEW: The sprawling metropolis of Chennai. — File photo: R. Shivaji Rao

CHENNAI : Chennai district election authorities will seek high-tech help to overcome the problem of poor photo electoral roll coverage in the city.

The Chennai Corporation, which also handles all election related work, has decided to use the strategy it had drawn up for better compliance with property tax to ensure better photo electoral roll coverage.

An official said Chennai Corporation Commissioner Rajesh Lakhoni presented the idea to Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami at a meeting here on Tuesday. He proposed an extension of the GIS mapping that is now being implemented for property tax to include people in a household too. Once this was done, the electoral identity card numbers will be correlated against the names. From this data, the election authorities will have a clear idea of the EPIC coverage.

The Corporation has already laid much of the groundwork for the property tax project and is waiting for clearance from the Defence Ministry to go ahead with implementing it across the city. Any aerial survey requires the consent of the Defence Ministry, an official said.The Ministry is considering the proposal.

Internet-based resources such as Google Earth cannot be used because the tax work would require a resolution of about a metre, which is not currently available, the official said.

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