SRINAGAR, FEB 28: The High Court of J&K and Ladakh on Wednesday granted Sonamarg Development Authority a month’s time to complete the process of satellite imagery for the golden meadow in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district.
A division bench of Chief Justice N. Kotiswar Singh and Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal passed the orders after perusing status reports filed by Chief Executive Officer Sonamarg Development Authority in compliance with the court’s order. The court was hearing Public Interest Litigation.
The CEO informed that the authority (SDA) promptly requested and sought assistance from the Deputy Commissioner, Ganderbal Regional Director, Ecology, Environment and Remote Sensing Department, J&K and Chief Town Planner, Town Planning Organization, Kashmir for processing of Data on the Satellite Imagery and completion of the report as per the court order dated 31 August 2023.
In response, the CEO of SDA said, Chief Town Planner Kashmir has submitted a report, stating that Town Planning Organization digitized the Master Plan, Land Use Plan and after overlaying it on the procured Satellite imagery from NRSC, the digitization of land use features building footprints have been done for generating comparative statistics (Draft stage) on category wise land use achieved on the ground with respect to the land use earmarked proposed in the Master Plan
The CTP Kashmir said that the Sonamarg Master Plan 2005-2025 was prepared by the Town Planning Organization Kashmir in AutoCAD Software. “A certain degree of error both in terms of area and location/shift is bound to occur while analyzing the master plan with that of ground conditions/reality, the reason being that a high precision satellite data /high-resolution imagery and GIS mapping was not available during the preparation of the Master Plan.”
“The exercise is still likely to take a month or so for carrying out the necessary ground validation of the image interpretation and with respect to master plan preparation,” the CTP Kashmir said, adding, “After cross-validation of the data, the final report shall be submitted to the Hon’ble High Court.”
