Bhubaneswar: The higher education department is planning to create a comprehensive digital inventory of land assets held by 742 govt, aided and non-govt degree colleges across the state, in order to establish how much land each institution possesses, verify ownership, identify encroachments and assess land available for future infrastructure development. Land ownership issues have also affected the ability of some institutions to secure NAAC, Rusa and other infrastructure grants.The exercise is expected to give the department a consolidated picture of land and infrastructure assets of these degree colleges for the first time under a common digital platform. The department said it will also help address long-standing problems such as incomplete land records, disputed boundaries, unauthorised occupation and fragmented documentation maintained by individual institutions.The department has recently floated a request for proposals for developing a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based Land Management System covering all 742 colleges. The proposed system will bring together digitised land documents, ownership details, cadastral maps and geographical information to create a centralised digital land register.The department officials said that an online dashboard will be created through which they can examine land availability and utilisation across colleges. It will have provisions for encroachment alerts, mobile-based field inspections and tracking of land-related litigation, including court cases and legal history. This will help them identify institutions with land-related constraints, monitor unauthorised occupation and assess the availability of land for additional classrooms, hostels and other infrastructure. The database will also serve as a decision-support system for planning future campus expansion and improving utilisation of govt land resources.Higher education officials added several colleges do not have digitised land records or complete Records of Rights. Boundary disputes and encroachments, coupled with multiple paper-based records, have made it difficult for the department to monitor institutional land assets centrally.Under the proposed exercise, every college will be surveyed through a mobile application to collect details of its total land area, built-up area and remaining land, besides information on academic and administrative buildings, classrooms, staff rooms and other facilities.The agency, selected for the job, will undertake high-resolution aerial surveys using drones and differential GPS technology to map campus boundaries and individual land parcels. A centralised GIS database will capture academic buildings, roads, playgrounds, parking areas, water bodies, drainage systems, green spaces and existing facilities, besides specifically identifying encroached land.Each land parcel will have a unique identification number, enabling plot-wise tracking and ownership mapping. The system will also integrate land records with Odisha’s Bhulekh platform and cadastral maps, while supporting land regularisation and mutation processes.