Multipurpose cadastre: more than 80 million hectares in 3 years – Sectors – Economy

There are municipalities in the country in which the cadastral information has not been updated for 30 years, such as some of those surrounding Bogota, Medellin or Cali, which have undergone significant urban development. There are others far away and not so far away that have never been reached. It is not known what is on the premises, if any activity is taking place or who owns it.

The goal of the Gustavo Petro government is as ambitious as it is challenging: go from 9 to 70% of the cadastral update with a multipurpose approach between now and 2026, which implies knowing in depth and for the first time what is in each of the properties in remote regions such as Guainía, Guaviare, Vaupés, Amazonas and Chocó.

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Altogether, the Agustín Codazzi Geographic Institute (IGAC) It calculates that there are 81 rural areas that have never had a cadastral update. Of these, 26 are in remote regions and now they want to identify each one of them to find out what their area is, if there are buildings in them, if any activity is carried out or who they belong to.

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This information would not only be used to collect taxes, but also so that the corresponding entities can distribute the necessary aid, such as providing subsidies and economic benefits, contributing to the legal protection of property and preparing cartography for both the comprehensive rural reform as for environmental planning, among others.

However, the challenge ahead is enormous: to physically, legally and economically update 80 million hectares spread over 660 municipalities in the country in the three and a half years that the government has left.

And it is that although the goal that was outlined in the National Development Plan is to reach 70 percent, the Igac aims even higher, to update 80 percent of the country. Thus, of the 10.9 million hectares that are currently updated, which represents only 9.6 percent of the country’s geographical area, it would have 90.2 million by 2026.

Gustavo Marulanda, director of Igac, He confesses that the greatest effort will be between this and next year. By 2023, the goal is to update 34.9 million hectares in 2023, in 2024 it would be another 26.1 million hectares, in 2025, close to 23.3 million hectares and in 2026 it would reach 5.9 million of hectares.

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The progress

In 2022, the cadastral authority completed 17 updating processes. Among them are the municipalities of Boyacá as Betéitiva, Socotá and Tasco, where the Igac had not entered for decades, or some from Cundinamarca like Gachancipá.

And by 2023, it is scheduled to intervene in 73 municipalities. However, these updates are subject to the contracting processes, prior consultations with the different ethnic groups and having the appropriate budget.

Many of these territories are in departments in the north of the country such as Córdoba, Sucre, Bolívar and Cesar, where the Government wants to focus on buying land to distribute it to peasants in the midst of the agrarian reform, since this is where some of the largest properties are located. productive and underutilized.

For example, this year they would focus on updating municipalities such as San Carlos, Puerto Libertador, Tierralta and San José de Uré, in the department of Córdoba; El Peñón, Montecristo, El Carmen de Bolívar, San Jacinto, Zambrano, in Bolívar; or Guaranda, San Onofre and Tolú Viejo, in Sucre.

However, they would also enter other more remote territories such as some of Caquetá (El Doncello, El Paujil and Puerto Rico) and would even update the Paramillo National Natural Park, located between the departments of Córdoba and Antioquia.

Similarly, in the list scheduled to start this year are other municipalities closer to Boyacá such as Boavita, Cerinza, Covarachía, Cuítiva, Gámeza, Monguí and Tipacoque.

Although this entire process falls on the highest cadastral authority, which is the Igac, there are also 45 authorized managers who are in charge of carrying out the cadastral formation, updating, conservation and dissemination processes, as well as the procedures of the multipurpose approach.

Some of them are Unity Bogotá District Cadastre Special Administrative Office; the departments of Cundinamarca, Antioquia and Valle del Cauca; the metropolitan area of ​​Barranquilla or Bucaramanga; the district of Cartagena or municipalities such as Cajicá, Tuluá and Sopó, among others.

In addition to this, there is the Superintendence of Notaries and Registry, which exercises inspection, surveillance and control of the exercise of cadastral management.

$4 trillion needed

Raise the cadastral update of Colombia from the current 9.6 percent to 80 percent between now and the end of the government it costs about 4 billion pesos, Marulanda dice. The problem is where such a quantity of resources will come from year after year.

At the moment, for this 2023 they already have them. The Igac already has 130,398 million pesos appropriated in the General Budget of the Nation for the execution of the multipurpose cadastre project, financed with resources from the Multilateral Bank and resources of the Nation.

And in order to ensure the goals in the budget addition that was produced in Congress, another 300,000 million pesos. These will be mainly to finance updating processes, surveying of cartographic inputs, compliance with prior consultation processes and the strengthening of the entity’s technological and institutional capacity.

Other resources available from extrabudgetary sources with which the update processes are being carried out come from international cooperators, among which stand out USAID, the United Kingdom, the French Development Agency and the BioCarbon Fund.

According to Igac, the costs depend on the scope and complexity of each territory. For example, variables such as accessibility, infrastructure, availability of services or inputs (cartography, geodesy) are taken into account.

Likewise, it can vary depending on the area to be intervened, the real estate dynamics, the number of estimated forecasts and the degree of outdatedness.

It will not go from farm to farm, and local actors will be trained

The Igac says that taking its personnel to the different remote territories of the country to do the multipurpose cadastre it would not be efficient. For this reason, the entity is training people in the territories so that they themselves can carry out the guided update, yes, by professionals.

On a first level, peasants, indigenous people and Afro communities, among others, are being trained so that they themselves have basic cadastral knowledge. And, in a second, the same will be done with technicians and professionals in the territory who are in charge of coordinating the different groups.

besides, The idea that is being contemplated is not going from one property to anotherbut to take advantage of artificial intelligence and data science to see the changes that the territories are having and go in person only to those where it is strictly necessary.

For this, it will be key to advance in the generation of the cartography of the country for cadastral purposes. In rural areas, Marulanda says that scales will be used that will allow one to see with satellite images what type of constructions there are and in the urban area others with a higher level of detail are required. In addition, documents in the chambers of commerce or in the superintendencies will be helped to see the changes that the neighborhoods have had. For example, if there are new constructions or businesses.

Likewise, he says that the contribution of citizens with information such as letters of sale or deeds will be important.

NOELIA CIGÜENZA RIAÑO
Economics and Business Deputy Editor
On Twitter: @noe_cig