Surveying over two centuries

Survey Department marks 210 years:

S M W Fernando Surveyor General

Natural earth resources are threefold; irrigational resources, hydrographic resources and mineral resources. The common characteristic of these resources is their limited supplies to the required demand. It is a well known that it is hard to achieve the successful development of land use activities for economic development without adopting necessary land policies. The history of the Survey Department is the real evolution of land policies.

The second department established by the British for the accomplishment of land related activities including irrigation, agriculture and meteorological forecasting was the Survey Department after they ceded Sri Lanka’s coastal areas in 1796.

Europeans had restrictions on purchasing land holdings on absolute ownership other than enjoying small land plots in Colombo and its suburbs for residential purposes until 1810.

The restriction imposed thus was released in the same year 1810 and in 1812, awarding Grants in Perpetuity to Europeans and their descendants as were settled in Ceylon before its conquest was declared. The quantity of land so granted was declared not more than 4,000 acres to any individual. During this period, Survey Department had been engaging on surveys for these massive grants. Following land ordinances made statutory before Sri Lanka gained independence caused the Survey Department to be engaged on various surveying functions in the country.

* State Lands Encroachments ordinance No.12 of 1840

* Definition of Boundaries ordinance No.1 of 1844

* Land Registration ordinance No.5 of 1877

* Waste Land ordinance No.1 of 1897

* Land Settlement ordinance No.20 of 1931

* Land Development ordinance No.19 of 1935

* State Lands ordinance No. 8 of 1947

Owing to sudden popularity of coffee plantation after 1840, land sales escalated in unprecedented magnitudes and the Department was more often engaged on State land surveys for the expansion of plantation economy of the British.

Engineering surveys

Engineering Surveys were designed for the rehabilitation of ancient irrigation schemes and for the development of areas under new human settlement schemes such as Galoya, Padaviya, Minneriya and Udawalawe.

The department also completed Contour Surveys, Village Tank Surveys and surveys to mark waterfalls and roadways with the initiative of Reconnaissance

Surveys at large scale. To fulfil these surveys, field officers had to work more often than under hard and tough conditions in forestry areas. Surveys required to prepare blocking out diagrams as the base for creating human settlements and to set out and finally hand over allotments to people. In the recent past, Survey Department under irrigation schemes completed Engineering Surveys of Moragahakanda and Umaoya Irrigation projects.

Demarcation Surveys

Demarcation Survey is a kind of surveys carried out with greater emphasis to clearly distinguish between State lands and private lands after independence. Village Plans under Block Surveys and Topographic Preliminary Plans were prepared under Land Settlement Ordinance for the Settlement Officer. On Settlement Officer’s order, Demarcation Surveys were carried out to prepare Final Village Plans (FVPs) and Final Topographic Preliminary Plans (FTPs) showing the settlements decided by the Settlement Officer. FVPs and FTPs depict lands declared as State and private. Under state lands they also depict lands developed under Land Development Ordinance.

Sporadic Surveys

The Land acquisition Act No. 9 of 1950 provided provisions to acquire lands for communal purposes. The Department had to receive and carry out common surveys such as acquisition surveys, vesting surveys, village expansion surveys and surveys for land alienation and land marking under middle-class schemes to a larger extent at the request of Government Agents and Land Commissioners.

Among the recent Sporadic Surveys carried out by the Department are Deduru Oya, Ihala Kotmale Hydro-power station, Kataragama Railway line and all expressways, alienation of 100,000 lands under The Mahinda Chintana and handing over lands under Walawe Left Bank Irrigation Project.

Major tasks engaged by the Survey Department under Sporadic Surveys are declaration of areas, valuation, expansions and town surveys for planning and reformation, and forest surveys covering a large area.

Survey Department has completed these surveys by employing a large number of surveyors. It is evident that the Survey Department had been engaged in abundance on Engineering Surveys, Block Surveys and Sporadic Surveys in the first 20 years after independence.

Land Reform Surveys

Land reform is the determined change of land tenure, land ownership and Land administration. At the time of independence, land tenure pattern of Sri Lanka had been partial to the capitalist production system.

At that time, most of the lands vested in State under Land Encroachment Ordinance and Waste Land Ordinance had fallen into the hands of local higher class and foreign investors.

A special landmark event of the Government under Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s Premiership during 1970 - 1977 is the land reformation activity of vesting about one million acres of land belonging to local and foreign upper class through the implementation of Land Reform Act No. 1 of 1972 on a Parliamentary constitutional reform.

It was necessary to employ two third of the departmental field staff strength to survey about 15,000 statutory determinants containing about 300,000 acres at the Land Reform in 1972.

One of the commendable tasks accomplished by the Department is the completion of a greater amount of this work within about six months.

The main responsible task of the Survey Department after completion of surveys for land reformation was undertaking surveys pertaining to expedited Mahaweli Development Project. It was necessitated to carry out expeditious and special surveys for the construction of large reservoirs such as Maduruoya, Moragahakanda, Kotmale, Victoria and Randenigala, and for the development of an area of about 350,000 acres consisting of large roads, waterfalls, towns and a network of residential units.

Among the surveys carried out to the satisfaction of foreign consultants who performed the constructions, and foreign organizations which provided grants are Contour Surveys, Dam Axis Surveys, Surveys for Geological and Geophysical investigations, Acquisition Surveys, Tank Boundary Surveys, Setting out Surveys, Waterfall Surveys, Town Surveys and Blocking out Surveys.

A considerable number of departmental staff have been assigned to work for the expedited Mahaweli Project since 1978. The Department by now has been engaged on land marking surveys to issue grants for alienated lands, surveys to finalize acquisition procedures and surveys for reservoir peripheral development at the request of Mahaweli Development Authority.

Cadastral Surveys

It is possible to bring convincing evidence from time immemorial that the title to land had been defined with the use of various methodologies. Such lands were divided into two categories; lands owned by King and lands owned by civilians, could be claimed as Viharagam, Dewalagam and Nindagam, and Paraweni as well.

Later, it was possible to distinguish between State lands and private lands from the Waste Land Ordinance introduced in 1840 and it can be identified as a major juncture of land ownership. From time immemorial, various documents have been introduced to claim the land ownership, where Copper Sannasa, lekam mitiya, rock inscriptions and Thombu during the era of Kings had been used as title certificates to Lands during the period of Dutch. During the period of British, titles as well as deed registration had been adopted.

Attempts made in 1863 to issue title certificates to lands under Title Registration Ordinance did not succeed. Subsequently, as a result of new amendments made in 1877, Kirulapone, Wellawatta and Dehiwala areas within the Colombo suburbs were declared as Special Registration areas. Even nowadays a land transaction in such areas must be carried out in accordance with title registration regulations, in which, a certain registration of a land plot is required to refer to a survey plan registered in the Surveyor General’s Office. Since the difficulties encountered in implementing this system islandwide, in 1927, Document Registration Ordinance, which is supposed to be covering every aspects of document registration was imposed by improving Deed Registration System introduced in 1864.

A necessity of a clear title to land arose because of the importance of land for the development of the country. As a result, preparation of cadastral maps was initiated in three selected Divisional Secretariats in 1996 as a pilot project. Title Registration Act No.21 of 1998 was passed as a legal provision to this effect.

As an initiative to title registration in Sri Lanka, Government declared Divulapitiya, Balangoda and Uda Palatha Divisional Secretariats as Cadastral areas on a Gazette notification. Until year 2002, these Cadastral maps were prepared at the cost of Sri Lankan Government as a national program. Thereafter, Cadastral maps were prepared with World Bank funds under Land Titling Project from March 15, 2002 to June 30, 2007 thereby completing surveys of 58,547 land plots for registration of title.

After diverse experience of 10 years from 1996, Bimsaviya program identified as an activity to issue title certificates to lands in compliance with land management and land use of the country has been in progress as a national program since 2007 in 18 Divisional Secretariats. So far, 217,750 land plots have been surveyed under this program. It is expected to expand this program in 50 Divisional Secretariats by 2015.

One of another major tasks carried out successfully in parallel with the Bimsaviya Program by the Department is systematical storage of digital cadastral surveying data accumulating in volumes at the Surveyor General’s Head Office in a spatial database management system to form a comprehensive Land Information System (LIS) to the entire country.

It is expected to make this database web enabled in near future for the use of land information required for various applications benefiting not only Land Administrators, decision makers and organizations dealing with land related information such as Valuation Department, Land Registration Department, Land

Settlement Department and the Land Use Planning Department but also the public to obtain information as and when required for matters related to land ownership and land transactions.

Geodetic Surveys

Horizontal control network commenced to establish in 1857 was completed in 1933. As the technology is advanced over time, a network of higher accuracy based on modern surveying techniques was highly felt. As a result the old horizontal network was upgraded with the use of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) with the advancement of Satellite technology, establishing 294 primary control stations to cover the entire island. In addition, establishment of about 10,000 control stations required for giant development projects and road development projects has successfully been completed based on the upgraded horizontal network.

Now initiatives are being taken to revise the existing Vertical control network established in 1930, since most of its Benchmarks have either been lost or shifted due to recent road development activities.

Further, a series of lectures have been conducted to Security Forces to obtain accurate position of targets and geo-information using Global Positioning Systems.

Topographical mapping

Necessity in finding out right knowledge on geographic location of the country, shape and size of the country, location of important places and their distances in between, roads and their lengths and information of land use and evolution of earth, caused the introduction of systematic mapping in the country.

Victorious efforts made by Surveyors and Draughtsmen to survey and map every piece of topographic information of the country with the use of surveying and mapping techniques provided the basis to produce one-inch map series to cover up the entire country during the period 1897 - 1903.

An idea about the amount of information so surveyed is reflected by the surveys of roads at a length of 14633 miles and channels, streams and rivers at a length of 11836 miles. By 1925, there had been in existence a complete topographic information cover of the entire country in one inch sheet mapping.

Later, it was realized to replace the existing one inch map series with a new topographical map series since one-inch sheets were compiled way back in 1925 with more obsolete information representing at the time of replacement. Another reason to update mapping process was the necessity of internationally recognized metric maps required for feasibility studies. Survey Department commenced a giant mapping project called Agricultural Base Mapping Project (ABMP) for the production of topographic maps of the scales of 1: 10,000 and 1: 50,000 in 1978 to cover up the entire country. Capturing aerial photographs of the scale of 1: 50,000 required for new mapping using photogrammetric techniques to cover important areas was carried out during the period of 1980 - 1982.

These aerial photographs were used to produce topographical maps of the scale of 1: 50,000. Compilation of 92 topographical maps of the scale of 1: 50,000 to cover up the entire country have already been completed. Also, It has already been completed compilation of 886 topographical of the scale of 1: 10,000 maps out of 1024 maps to cover the entire country and the work of the rest is under way.

Aerial photographs of the scale of 1:20,000 were captured in order to cover 70 percent of the area of the country during the period of 1990 -1994 and these photographs have been in use for mapping at the scale of 1: 10,000.

Mapping section of the department was upgraded with modern mapping devices and the Process and Printing branches were strengthened by the installation of a large process camera and a modern printing device. It has already been completed preparation of topographical maps of the scale of 1: 10,000 to cover Eastern region of the country with the use of satellite images under a loan granted by French Government.

Capturing aerial photographs of the scale of 1: 20,000 with Photogrammetric techniques to cover entire Northern region has been commenced for the rapid development of the Northern Province under Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) project, where expectation is to map Jaffna and Mannar Districts at the scale of 1: 10,000. Also, initiative steps have been taken to produce a new edition of topographical map series of the scale of 1: 50,000 to cover up the entire country with the use of satellite images.

Due to the turbulent conditions prevailing in the North and East during the recent past, 1: 10,000 mapping in those areas had been retarded. However, with the smooth conditions prevailing now in such areas, topographical mapping series of 1: 10,000 for the entire country would probably reach successful completion by the end of this year.

Remote Sensing Unit

Remote Sensing Unit of the Department was established in 1978 and hence the ability to utilize Remote Sensing techniques for efficient mapping became really feasible. District Land Use Maps of the scale of 100,000 have been prepared for each district with the aid of satellite images and its processing techniques.

Remote Sensing Unit very recently completed preparation of Digital Land Use Maps for areas under Southern development and it is possible to provide such information in digital formats. Further, Survey Department is proud to have gained rare opportunities to organize and launch Fourth Asian Conference of Remote Sensing (ACRS) in 1983, 17th ACRS in 1996 and the 29th ACRS in 2008 in Sri Lanka.

Thematic mapping

In consequence of having a greater demand for map users belonging to a wider category for obtaining maps under especial themes, survey department has compiled a number of thematic maps based on topographical maps, in association with aerial photographs, satellite images and statistical data obtained from the organizations concerned.

Sri Lanka Road Map, Sri Lanka Tourist Map, City of Colombo, Weather Map, Relief Map and Map under the theme of the antiquities of Anuradhapura era are among a few of the popular thematic maps produced by the Survey Department.

National Map Atlas

One of the major functions of National Map Atlas is to convey a strong impression to citizens of their identity, living in a particular country. Survey Department, being the focal point to produce National Map Atlas in 1988, paved the leadership for an expert committee consisting of University Professors and officials of the relevant ministries and departments.

The National Map Atlas published in English medium encompasses 59 multi-coloured maps and 55 technical articles including tracings covering different fields. Planners, Decision Makers and Foreign Expertise would realize National Map Atlas as a rich source of worthy information.

In 1992, as a conciseness of the first edition of Sinhala and Tamil School map series including nine themes and 40 articles for school children was released.

The second volume of National Map Atlas was published in 2008 by taking one step forward. Sinhala and Tamil translation of the second volume including 80 valuable articles under 12 themes and 125 maps are being processed these days. It would be a greater opportunity for school children, university students including the public to study wider range of facts and figures about Sri Lanka out of this volume subject to translation, which is expected to be released in the near future.