Consider the following statements regarding the SVAMITVA scheme : 1. It is a Central Sector Scheme under the Ministry of Mines. 2. This scheme seeks to create geopositioning infrastructure like CORS network to benchmark the location and provides five centimetre level accuracy. 3. CORS means Cross-Origin Resource Sharing. 4. The scheme is a reformative step towards establishment of clear ownership of property in rural inhabited (Abadi) areas, by mapping of land parcels using drone technology. Which of the above statements are incorrect?
- (a)2 and 4
- (b)1 and 3
- (c)2 and 3
- (d)1 and 4
Correct — B, 1 and 3. Both wrong statements attach a false label to something the scheme really does, which is why each is only half wrong and therefore tempting. Take statement 1. SVAMITVA — Survey of Villages And Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas — is indeed a Central Sector Scheme; the Ministry of Panchayati Raj's Framework for Implementation says so in those words, that "the scheme is a Central Sector Scheme titled 'SVAMITVA – Survey of villages and mapping with improvised technology in village areas'". But the ministry named in the statement is wrong. The Framework's list of stakeholders opens with "Nodal Ministry (Ministry of Panchayati Raj), Govt of India", followed by "Survey of India (Technology Implementation Agency)", the State Revenue Departments, the State Panchayati Raj Departments, the district authorities and the property owner. The Ministry of Mines has no role in it at all. Statement 3 is the other trap and a pure domain confusion: in this scheme CORS stands for Continuously Operating Reference Station — the Framework calls it "Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) technology" and describes it as "network of reference stations that provide a virtual base station that allows access long-range high-accuracy network RTK corrections with centimetre-level horizontal positioning in real-time". Cross-Origin Resource Sharing is a real acronym, but it belongs to web browsers and HTTP headers and has nothing to do with land surveying. The other two statements hold up against the same document. Statement 2 restates the CORS component almost verbatim, and the accuracy figure checks out: the Ministry's procurement specification is a "CORS Network RTK service of ≤ 5 cm horizontal accuracy", the drone deliverable is orthorectified imagery at 5 cm ground sampling distance with ±5 cm horizontal accuracy, and the Ministry's own SVAMITVA book describes the planned 567 CORS stations as "a geo-positioning infrastructure, which can be used to replace the chain surveys practiced in several States". Statement 4 is the scheme's purpose in one line — drone mapping of rural inhabited abadi land so that a Record of Rights and a property card can be issued to the household owner.
- (a)2 and 4 — The exact inversion of the answer: it condemns the only two statements that are accurate. Statement 2 paraphrases the CORS component of the scheme guidelines, including the five-centimetre accuracy specification, and statement 4 states the scheme's whole purpose — drone mapping of abadi land to establish clear property ownership — which is what the name SVAMITVA translates to.
- (c)2 and 3 — Spots the Cross-Origin Resource Sharing error in statement 3 but then wrongly rejects statement 2. A candidate who has just decided that CORS is a web-security term will naturally distrust the sentence that talks about a CORS network, and will reject both together. Statement 2 is correct: the CORS network and the five-centimetre accuracy are both in the Ministry of Panchayati Raj's own implementation framework.
- (d)1 and 4 — Correctly rejects the Ministry of Mines in statement 1 but then rejects statement 4, which is the least assailable sentence on the list. Drone-based mapping of rural inhabited (abadi) land to confer clear ownership is not a detail of the scheme — it is the scheme, and the Framework describes exactly that as the route to a Record of Rights and a property card.
Government surveys of rural land in India had historically covered agricultural land and left the inhabited part of a village out — the abadi in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, lal dora in Punjab and Haryana, gaothan in Maharashtra and Gujarat. Millions of rural households therefore owned homes they could not prove they owned, and could not pledge them for a bank loan. SVAMITVA, a Central Sector Scheme of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj whose pilot the Prime Minister launched on 24 April 2020, National Panchayati Raj Day, exists to close that gap. It works in two technological layers. First, a ground layer of Continuously Operating Reference Stations, permanently installed GNSS receivers that broadcast real-time correction data so that any rover in range gets centimetre-level positions instead of the metre-level accuracy of an ordinary satellite fix. Second, survey-grade drones flown by the Survey of India over the abadi area, producing orthorectified imagery at 5 cm ground sampling distance from which each plot boundary can be drawn. Gram Sabha verification follows, and the state revenue department issues a property card.
Both wrong statements here are built the same way — a true fact with one false element bolted on — and that is the pattern to recognise rather than the individual facts. Statement 1's error is not 'Central Sector Scheme', which is right; it is the ministry. Statement 3's error is not that CORS matters to the scheme, which it does; it is what CORS expands to. The efficient route through the options is to find the statement you are surest about and use it to cut. That statement is 4: drone mapping of abadi land for clear ownership is the scheme's entire reason for existing, so any code naming statement 4 as incorrect is out, which deletes (a) and (d) together. The remaining two, (b) and (c), both contain statement 3, so the whole question reduces to one comparison — is statement 1 wrong, or statement 2? Statement 1 puts a Panchayati Raj scheme under the Ministry of Mines; statement 2 repeats the guidelines' CORS and five-centimetre language. Statement 1 is the wrong one, so the answer is (b). One caution on statement 3 for the future: acronyms are reused across domains and an exam will exploit it — CORS is Cross-Origin Resource Sharing to a web developer and a Continuously Operating Reference Station to a surveyor, and the context of the question decides which is meant.
- SVAMITVA stands for Survey of Villages And Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas; the Ministry of Panchayati Raj's Framework calls it "a Central Sector Scheme" and names MoPR the Nodal Ministry
- Survey of India is the Technology Implementation Agency; the other stakeholders are the State Revenue Departments, the State Panchayati Raj Departments, district authorities and the property owner
- CORS here is a Continuously Operating Reference Station network — "reference stations that provide a virtual base station" giving "centimetre-level horizontal positioning in real-time"; the scheme's specification is RTK service of ≤ 5 cm horizontal accuracy, and 567 CORS stations were planned as public geo-positioning infrastructure
- Drone deliverable: orthorectified images at 5 cm ground sampling distance with ±5 cm horizontal accuracy, mapped on a 1:500 scale over rural inhabited (abadi) land
- The Pilot Phase was launched by the Prime Minister on 24 April 2020, National Panchayati Raj Day; the first physical distribution of property cards followed on 11 October 2020, to about one lakh owners in 763 villages across Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh
- The scheme's output is a Record of Rights and a property card, letting a rural household pledge its home as a financial asset and letting Gram Panchayats assess property tax where it has been devolved
- Wrong-ministry statements. 'Central Sector Scheme' is correct for SVAMITVA, so the falsehood hides in the ministry — the nodal ministry is Panchayati Raj, not Mines, Rural Development, or Agriculture
- Acronym collision. CORS means Continuously Operating Reference Station in surveying and Cross-Origin Resource Sharing in web technology; read the subject of the question before expanding an acronym
- Assuming SVAMITVA covers all rural land. It covers only the inhabited abadi area of villages; agricultural land records sit with the state revenue system and the Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme
BPSC builds scheme questions by copying sentences out of the official guidelines and corrupting one element in each — a ministry here, an acronym expansion there — so the marks go to whoever has read the scheme's own page rather than a summary. UPSC works the same material from the administrative side, asking which ministry runs a body, whether a programme is Central Sector or Centrally Sponsored, and what its funding pattern is, as in its 2024 question on the Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme.
With reference to the Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme, consider the following statements : 1. To implement the scheme, the Central Government provides 100% funding. 2. Under the Scheme, Cadastral Maps are digitised. 3. An initiative has been undertaken to transliterate the Records of Rights from local language to any of the languages recognized by the Constitution of India. Which of the statements given above are correct?
- (a) 1 and 2 only
- (b) 2 and 3 only
- (c) 1 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer(d) 1, 2 and 3
The other half of India's land-records reform, tested the same way. DILRMP digitises the cadastral record of agricultural land and, like SVAMITVA, is a fully Central-funded Central Sector Scheme producing a Record of Rights — and UPSC's statement set turns on the same details BPSC corrupts here: funding pattern, scheme type and what exactly is being mapped.
Survey of India is under the Ministry of
- (a) Defence
- (b) Environment and Forests
- (c) Home Affairs
- (d) Science and Technology
Answer(d) Science and Technology
Tests the same 'which ministry owns this' reflex that decides statement 1 here, and it is about the very agency SVAMITVA depends on: the Survey of India, India's national mapping organisation under the Department of Science and Technology, is the Technology Implementation Agency that flies the drones.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The SVAMITVA scheme is implemented by which Ministry, with which agency as its technology implementation partner?
- (a)Ministry of Rural Development, with the National Remote Sensing Centre
- (b)Ministry of Panchayati Raj, with the Survey of India
- (c)Ministry of Mines, with the Geological Survey of India
- (d)Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, with ISRO
Answer(b) Ministry of Panchayati Raj, with the Survey of India — the scheme's implementation framework names MoPR as the Nodal Ministry and the Survey of India as the Technology Implementation Agency.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In the context of the SVAMITVA scheme, CORS refers to:
- (a)Cross-Origin Resource Sharing
- (b)Continuously Operating Reference Station network
- (c)Central Online Registry of Settlements
- (d)Community Owned Rural Survey
Answer(b) Continuously Operating Reference Station network — permanently installed GNSS reference stations that supply real-time corrections and give centimetre-level horizontal positioning for the drone survey.