The State Urban Development Agency has published an open competitive tender on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) under Bid Number GEM/2026/B/8039981 on 16 September 2026 for the "Hiring of a GIS Implementation Agency for Drone Photogrammetric Survey, Cadastral Vectorization, Ground Truthing, and Municipal Geospatial Database Development." The project supports smart city planning, automated property tax assessment, utility asset management, and urban zoning administration.

The State Urban Development Agency has published an open competitive tender on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) under Bid Number GEM/2026/B/8039981 on 16 September 2026 for the "Hiring of a GIS Implementation Agency for Drone Photogrammetric Survey, Cadastral Vectorization, Ground Truthing, and Municipal Geospatial Database Development." The project supports smart city planning, automated property tax assessment, utility asset management, and urban zoning administration.

With bid submissions closing on 07 October 2026 at 03:30 PM IST, this procurement represents a prime, high-value opportunity for specialized geospatial engineering MSMEs, drone survey startups, and GIS consulting firms. The scope encompasses high-resolution drone mapping, differential GPS ground control point (GCP) surveying, parcel-level cadastral boundary vectorization, attribute field surveys, and geodatabase integration into the municipal GIS web portal. In accordance with Central Public Procurement Policy guidelines and GeM General Terms and Conditions (GTC), registered Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) and DPIIT-recognized drone startups enjoy a 100% statutory exemption from depositing the INR 76,000 Earnest Money Deposit (EMD).

The procuring authority spearheads modern municipal administration, town planning schemes, and property tax rationalization across regional urban local bodies. Precise geospatial data is essential to identify unassessed commercial properties, manage stormwater drainage alignments, and enforce master plan zoning.

The evaluation committee consists of chief town planners, GIS technical directors, and remote sensing specialists who require high horizontal and vertical accuracy (sub-10 cm RMSE), valid DGCA drone pilot certifications, clean topological data structuring, and full compliance with the National Geospatial Policy 2022.

The contracted agency will execute complete end-to-end surveying, processing, and database delivery across five phases:

A. Ground Control Points (GCP) & DGPS Survey

Establishment of high-precision permanent and semi-permanent Ground Control Points (GCPs) across the planning area using dual-frequency Differential GPS (DGPS) or RTK GNSS receivers tied to the Survey of India reference network.

Post-processing of baseline vectors ensuring positional horizontal accuracy within ±15 mm and vertical accuracy within ±25 mm.

B. Drone Photogrammetric Aerial Survey

Deployment of DGCA Type-Certified survey-grade UAVs (fixed-wing or multirotor) equipped with minimum 24MP calibrated full-frame optical sensors.

Acquisition of nadir aerial imagery with minimum 75% forward overlap and 65% lateral overlap, achieving a Ground Sampling Distance (GSD) of better than 5 cm per pixel.

Obtainment of necessary DGCA Digital Sky permissions and local administration clearances prior to flight operations.

C. Photogrammetric Image Processing & Modeling

Aerial triangulation, bundle block adjustment, and radiometric color balancing using professional photogrammetry suites (e.g., Pix4D, Agisoft Metashape, or Bentley ContextCapture).

Generation of high-resolution True Orthorectified Photos (Orthomosaic) in GeoTIFF format, Digital Surface Models (DSM), and Digital Terrain Models (DTM) with contours at 0.5-meter intervals.

D. Cadastral Vectorization & Attribute Door-to-Door Survey

Digitization and vectorization of parcel boundaries, building footprints, road centerlines, open drains, streetlights, and water hydrants into standardized GIS feature classes.

Mobile application-based field ground-truthing collecting property attributes: property usage (residential, commercial, mixed), number of floors, construction type, owner details, and geo-tagged photographs.

E. Geodatabase Delivery & Web GIS Integration

Delivery of seamless OGC-compliant geodatabases (ESRI File Geod