Soil & Land Use Survey of India (SLUSI),
earlier All India Soil & Land Use Survey (AISLUS) established in 1958,
is a subordinate office of the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation &
Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare.
The foundation of the national level soil surveys in India was laid in
1953 when the Government of India invited Dr. F. F. Rickens, Soil
Specialist from USA to advice on organizing soil survey programmes in
the country. Subsequently in 1955, the All India Soil Survey Scheme was
initiated under the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi to
carry out reconnaissance soil surveys in the country. Four Regional
Centres designated as Alluvial Soil Region, Black Soil Region, Red &
Lateritic Soil Region- I and Red & Lateritic Soil Region- II were
established at Delhi, Nagpur, Calcutta and Bangalore, respectively. In
the year 1958, the Scheme was enlarged by integrating land use survey
scheme of the Central Soil Conservation Board of the Department of
Agriculture for conducting detailed soil surveys in RVP catchment areas
to provide detailed information on soil and land characteristics for
planning and execution of effective soil conservation measures. Thus,
the original Scheme was renamed as All India Soil & Land Use Survey
(AISLUS) in 1958 and its responsibilities were enlarged to cover
detailed soil surveys for soil conservation activities.
It is an apex organization in the country which deals with Soil
Survey and Land Resource Mapping.The
SLUSI is a primarily engaged in conducting soil survey of different
intensities in order to provide scientific database for developmental
programmes encompassing soil and water conservation planning, watershed
development, scientific land use planning etc. The database generation
of the organization commensurate with the requirement of soil and land
use information of various land-based development programmes.The
organization is well equipped with Remote Sensing techniques, Geographic
Information System (GIS), Image Analysis along with modern facilities of
soil analysis and cartography laboratories for acquision of soil and
land information and for the development and management of digitial
spatial database.It operates soil survey activities from Headquarters at
New Delhi (Headed by Chief Soil Survey Officer) through seven
Centres (Headed by Head of Office (HoO) ) Located at Noida,
Kolkata, Nagpur, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Ranchi. [Click here
for Activities of SLUSI]
Surveys (Click on Map for
more information about survey)
Detailed Soil Survey
Soil Resource Mapping Rapid Reconnaissance Survey
Microwatershed Atlas of India (Click
on Map for more information)