Delhi: MCD’s drone-based property survey pilot project to kick off soon

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is set to begin a pilot project using drones and other advanced mapping technologies to improve property tax assessment.

According to officials, the exercise is expected to help identify unassessed and under-assessed properties and plug revenue leakages.

The pilot follows memorandums of understanding (MoUs) signed by the civic body on June 2 with four agencies under its “Pilot Drone-based Geospatial Survey and Digital Twin Initiative”.

Under the project, the agencies will independently conduct surveys using drone-based aerial imaging, LiDAR mapping, GIS-based asset mapping, Digital Twin technology, 3D city modelling and advanced data analytics. The MCD will not incur any expenditure on the pilot exercise, officials said.

An MCD official said the technology is likely to be used to improve the accuracy of property records and strengthen tax administration by identifying properties that are either outside the tax net or assessed below their actual value.

Besides improving property tax collection, the initiative is also expected to support urban planning and create a comprehensive geospatial database that can be used for civic services and governance, civic officials said.

According to the civic body, the pilot will allow it to compare the effectiveness of different technologies and survey methods before deciding on whether the exercise should be expanded across Delhi.

“On successful completion and evaluation of the pilot projects, MCD may consider expanding the initiative across its entire jurisdiction,” an official said, adding that the exercise will help map out the approximated number of houses in civic body’s jurisdiction.

The civic body had reportedly collected around Rs 3,116 crore in property tax during 2025-26 from nearly 13,52,500 property tax payers, although missing its target of Rs 3,500 crore

Officials said the pilot is expected to help improve tax compliance, expand the tax payer base and reduce revenue losses by bringing more taxable properties into the system.

According to the provisional data from the House Listing Operations (HLO) conducted by census officials for census 2027, enumerators recorded 75,98,982 census houses and 54,98,560 households across Delhi’s 13 districts.