Sharjah Department of Town Planning and Survey - Land Demarcation Service

Company: Sharjah Department of Town Planning and Survey (SDTPS), Sharjah, State of Sharjah
Entry Submitted By: Microvision IT Solutions
Company Description: SDTPS Vision is to plan for the future according to the highest standards and global systems, basing our approach to our expertise and our staff, under the general layout and distinctive character of Sharjah. SDTPS is involved in implementing the housing policy of the Emirate of Sharjah and allocating the (residential, industrial, agricultural and commercial lands to the citizens of the Emirates
Nomination Category: Customer Service Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Award for Innovation in Customer Service Management, Planning & Practice - Government

Nomination Title: SDTPS Land Demarcation Service

Provide an essay of up to 625 words describing the nominee's innovative achievements since July 1 2018:

SDTPS is involved in implementing the housing policy of the Emirate of Sharjah and allocating the (residential, industrial, agricultural and commercial lands to the citizens of the Emirates. SDTPS vision is to plan for the future according to the highest standards and global systems under the general layout and distinctive character of Sharjah.

SDTPS has worked purposefully to plan its processes and works in a way to minimize the efforts required by its surveyors, and in turn save public money on these services by improving the performance of its electronics services. One of such service is the Land Demarcation service which helped surveyors and citizen for Sharjah save their valuable time and efforts to get land approvals without visiting the SDTPS office with bundles of paper records.

Service Functionality

Before the app was introduced surveyors used to receive daily manual survey plans. A single application by land owners would have to go through at least 5 stages of survey, starting from land leveling survey to identification specific construction elements, and would take from 5 days to a months’ time. The app was created with the objective to simplify the process of customers and to improve the level of performance by SDTPS employees (surveyors) by providing them relevant tools to perform their operations.

In the new app, a surveyors can attach digital proofs including images and videos to their survey results along the survey specific forms. The app also identified and helps surveyors locate geographical location of different site using geolocation services to precisely locate the organization in UAE. The mobile app is linked to the Survey system and provide real-time updates both to the surveyor and the survey management team.

The app also has a citizen interface which allows citizens to log in and provided details about the land and their application for the survey. The citizen can either pay through the mobile app or use the generated QR code to pay through other channels for their particular application.

The service provides both in app updates as well as mobile and email notifications to the individuals making applications. Supplemented with relevant dashboards for administrative team and live status of surveys, the application helps to identify the major hurdles and smoothen operation on real time bases.

Innovation and Technology

-Barcode reading technology was used to easily exchange data between surveyor and the applicant apps during field operations
-Geolocation services are used to identify closest sites for survey and optimize the assignment process.The in app maps help to identify closest locations for survey for better utilization of resource time
-The application allows for onsite images and video records to supplement and enrich the survey results

Major Value Add

Cost Saving: There is a significant saving of cost of moving surveyor between geographically dispersed locations. Since the admin team is aware of surveyor location they can monitor and assign real-time surveys which are closest to the surveyor location.
Time Saving: The new service saved a lot of time for the transaction starting from the customer creating an application, to allocation time and actual survey results by the surveyor. The use of bar code technology also saved time to pre fill data for the customers.
Improving the quality of service through data: The appointment coordination between the customer and the surveyor has improved. The surveyor is able to coordinate real-time with the customer about any reschedules. Meanwhile the customer is able to print the final product (survey records) directly from the application at his home rather than in person visits at the SDTPS facility.

Beneficiaries

So far 1710 contractors have benefited directly through this service. As for the indirect impact it includes more than 280,000 land owners in the Emirates of Sharjah.