The Hindu Business Line : New Map Policy to boost GIS-based industry

THE New Map Policy announced by the Centre is expected to boost the Geographical Information Systems (GIS)-based industry, as well as help create a range of databases, which could be used in better planning and implementation of development projects.

The policy, announced by the Union Minister for Science and Technology, Mr Kapil Sibal, will allow for two sets of maps — one for civilian utility, the Open Series Maps (OSMs), and the Defence Series Maps (DSMs). The Survey of India, under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), will be the nodal agency to make available these maps.

India, with an area of about 32,87,263 sq. km., has been covered through topographical and geographical maps. The topographical maps are large format in the scale of 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 sheets and useful to professionals such as geographers, engineers, planners, tourists and foresters. The geographical maps are small scale 1:2,50,000. These are used by various government agencies and research organisations.

However, most of these maps have been made several decades ago. With the changed demands and the availability of satellite imagery, the need is to generate maps of the scale 1:10,000 and lower, which could be used in development projects. Here, the private sector can see an opportunity both in preparing such maps and creating databases.

Though the policy says the civilian maps would provide coordinates, heights, etc., a lot would depend on the contents of the map. Similarly, the industry apprehension remains whether the maps would be freely available or they would be screened by another body.

The Survey of India has been asked to create a National Digital Topographical Database (NDTB). The use of OSMs would be through registration. A map information registry database is being created. And maps of scale 1:1 million and smaller are being de-classified.

With the growing role for the private sector in providing services to the government and local bodies, there is a need for the creation of a whole scale of new set of maps. The policy's flexibility allowing private agencies to carry out surveys in all parts of the country using public domain data would be a positive step.

There has been persistent demand from the growing private industry using the maps, especially the GIS, Global Positioning Systems, travel and tourism and the infrastructure developers for the removal of restrictions on access to maps. At present, for example, GIS-based companies in India do 90 per cent of their business through foreign projects and only 10 per cent domestic due to the restrictions on the access to digital maps. This situation would significantly reverse, if the policy is implemented in toto, said Mr G.S. Kumar, Chairman of the Map World Technologies and former Director of Survey of India.

The liberalisation in access to maps would help both the private sector and the government organisations. In addition to telecom, planning in infrastructure projects, marketing activities, land records, water and natural resources management and municipalities would gain from the databases that could be created.

During the last 5-6 years, the access to maps became more difficult, especially with the availability of technology to put the maps in digital format. The Ministry of Defence put up a rigid front with issues of security and sensitive nature of the map data being cited in defence, industry experts said.

The industry has been stating that restrictions were slowing down development work and the growth of the sector. For a long time, publication of maps in any form, including in geography textbooks, needed the permission of the Surveyor General of India. There are other restrictions related to defence installations or vital civil areas and features such as reservoirs and dams.

However, with satellite imagery of high resolution coming in and becoming available, especially the one-metre resolution Ikonos images, restrictions were questioned by a section of scientists and private companies needing maps. Though the Indian Space Research Organisation put a committee to screen the request and provide these images of India to private companies, the process took three months. While a foreign company could get the maps immediately, hence neither a level playing field nor the security issues could be taken care off.

The Survey of India has generated invaluable data in the form of maps, toposheets of various scales, which provide the basis for the emergence of strong players in the sector. Similarly, the satellite imagery through the Remote Sensing Satellites, and even the recent Cartosat-I, with a resolution of 2.5 metres, and the Cartosat-II (about one metre resolution), scheduled for launch towards the end of 2005 would generate a wealth of data, which could be utilised for planning and creating appropriate databases.

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