Push to use GIS in district-level projects

New Delhi: For optimal use of geospatial data and geographical information system (GIS) in planning and conceptualising district level welfare projects, the Central government’s science and technology arm promoting g-governance has planned a brain storming session this week with technical coordinators from 10 states where GIS data is available and under use.

“The discussion will focus on assessing the gaps between the geospatial data that we have uploaded on the web-accessible databases and the requirements and practical problems faced by decision makers in government departments like education, PWD, health, social welfare or police or disaster management,” said Bhoop Singh, head, Natural Resources Data Management System (NRDMS), under the department of science and technology.

“The success stories based on uses of GIS in one state will be shared with others,” said Mr Singh. He gave the example of district education officer in Karnataka’s Gulbarga district who successfully used geospatial data Infrastructure on his computer to find out which schools need an upgrade in toilet and education facilities.

Similarly, crime probe areas for opening a new police station in Shimoga city in the state were identified by a superintendent of police by analysing the crime data, population density and social-economic factors related to reported crimes, he said.

Mr Singh said that the participants in the brain-storming session will include technical coordinators from 10 states where district level maps or geospatial data infrastructure has also been developed or is in the process of being developed.

These included 60 districts in Karnataka, West Bengal and Uttarakhand and another 100 districts in Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Jharkhand and Odisha. Recently, Uttarakhand, which has adopted geospatial governance in three districts of Almora, Tehri and Nainital, decided to set up GIS cells in all its 13 districts.

Almora district’s GIS cell director J.S. Rawat said that in the state government issued an order on November 28 to have GIS cells in all districts.

Under its National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) programme, NRDMS has worked with data providing agencies like Survey of India, CPCB, Forest Survey of India, Census of India and National Remote Sensing Centre, among others, to develop GIS data assets like maps that can be accessed from anywhere in the country.

“Use of spatial technology can help select ideal location for facilities like ration shops, schools or facilities like a check dam or diversions dams for optimal benefit of the community,” said Mr Singh. “We have put together information on roads, census and demographic details, rivers, schools, police stations, temples, forests, hospitals and many other physical features and made it accessible for all,” said Mr Singh, whose team earlier drafted the National Data Sharing Accessibility Policy to encourage use of geospatial data by decision makers.

Spatial data, also known as geospatial data, is the information about a physical object that can be represented by numerical values in a geographic set-up and can be stored in a web-accessible database. If geospatial data answers query on a facility or natural resource’s location, GIS answers the questions on specific details like capacity and size of that facility.

Satellite data

• Geospatial data is the information about a physical object that can be represented by numerical values in a geographic set-up and can be stored in a web-accessible database.
• Can help select ideal location for facilities like ration shops & schools