Uproar in Areal after vehicle spotted conducting survey

A survey conducted by a camera mounted on a vehicle created an uproar in Sao Jose de Areal after it was found moving in the village on Saturday morning.

MARGAO

Sao Jose de Areal village witnessed an uproar after they spotted a vehicle conducting a survey in the village on Saturday morning.

As the team was doing the survey with a camera mounted on the vehicle, the villagers informed the Sarpanch Joyce Dias, seeking her intervention in the matter. 

When the Sarpanch confronted the team over the survey, they pointed out that they are executing the job of executing a project named “image collection” for the data collection across several states.

The Sarpanch, however, questioned how the Telangana registered number was conducting the survey in the villages when the local panchayat body has not been kept in the loop by the district authorities. 

The team produced some documents in support of their contention, but failed to convince the people. Not taking any chances, the sarpanch called up the district authorities as well as the Maina Curtorim police to verify the claims made by the agency and told the agency to stop the survey pending inquiry by the police.

Joyce Dias later told the media that it is surprising that the survey is being conducted by an agency without the district authorities informing the local panchayat bodies. “How can the vehicle just go around the village and conduct the survey. We told them to stop the survey pending inquiry by the police and the district authorities”, Dias said.

Incidentally, when The Goan contacted the district authorities to shed light on the survey, they feigned ignorance about the survey. In fact, a senior district administration official pointed out that they need to verify and cross check the documents produced by the team while conducting the survey at Areal.

A document which was produced by the agency before the Areal Sarpanch is a letter made to the Director General and Inspector General of Police Goa way back in April 2024, intimating the survey and self-declaration as per the policy. 

Saying the agency has conducted a pilot in Hyderabad and started the operations in Goa, the agency, had in the letter, pointed out that it would like to continue the operations and cover all the major cities and towns of Goa.

The letter stated: “As part of this exercise, the agency will mount surveying equipment on top of cars. We will use at least 60 cars over a period of 2 years to execute the data collection across India. As the cars move on the roads in Goa, the mounted surveying equipment will snap high resolution images of the road in following the guidelines of DST (Department of Science & Technology:

Further, the letter further stated that the images include the signals, road directional signs, speed limit signs, dividers, etc., the relate to the road traffic management and important locations like shopping malls, restaurants, petrol stations, bus stops, post offices, etc. The images taken by this surveying equipment will be processed as per DST rules and regulations and used for navigation applications, the letter added.