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GIS in midas' installations
Installation
The computer connectivity is a welcome technological development that will offer lot of hopes to those living in rural areas. But the vastness of the Country and lack of proper transport facilities preclude the installation process at the rate it should be done. The only guide available are the topographic maps prepared by the Survey of India in the middle sixties or the early seventies. The changes occurred between then and now are phenomenal like the change in vegetation or disappearance or change of course of waterways complicates the situation even further. Procurement of these maps is not easy either. These maps are divided into two categories viz. unrestricted and restricted. The unrestricted maps can be bought by anybody off the counter while the restricted maps are available to only special categories of people such as educational institutions etc. Even for these restricted maps, special procedure has to be followed for purchasing these maps and then an annual report submitted to the relevant authorities. Midas being a Company, it is impossible to get these maps unless one beats the system. Also, the Survey of India 's Office at Bangalore controls maps for Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala while Hyderabad stocks maps for Andhra Pradesh. Some of these maps are out of stock and there is no chance of getting these maps for a long time.
Using the unrestricted maps, Midas chose Madurai District in Tamil Nadu for offering the Computer connections for both voice and data. A visit by the staff of Midas and n-Logue Communications to Madurai showed that the people of this area were very much interested in the communication facility. A few more visits were made to select two sites for two DIU installations. If these efforts are projected on all India bases, just imagine the cost involved in travel and other aspects of the project. The purpose of offering low cost installation will be totally lost if all these costs are added up.
The Use of GIS
Geographic Information Systems are an important new entry point into fields where location in geographic space makes a difference, what might be called the mapping Sciences (Clarke, 1997). He also says that the evolution of the GIS has now reached maturity, and the benefits to all are self-evident. This benefit can now be applied in locating the siktes for the installations of Midas' telecommunication system, although it might be first of it kind.
The Remote Sensing (RS) technique and the Geographical Positioning System (GPS) would have produced images of all ground features of various places in the world. The Geographical Information System (GIS) developed by the above techniques offer a great relief in showing the latest positions of the features including the towers, antennae, tall buildings etc. These features help locating the exact positions for the installations from the boardroom of Midas instead of making various visits to the sites. The author's personal experience as an airborne and ground geophysicist with Australian Bureau of Mineral Resources (now Australian Geological Survey Organisation) has shown that the positions located by using GIS have been accurate when compared to locations plotted by the aerial photographs. The pilot flying with the help of air photos and the old Doppler navigation system often ended up in guesswork as to either the featur would have changed or the waterways dried up etc. The Conference might be aware that the GIS is being used in the agricultural projects in India and abroad, but there is not enough information about the use of GIS for the location of sites for communication installations. Although some information is available from different sources, it is possible that the job can be done more accurately to pinpoint the locations using GIS. This being a new development in the scientific field, it is difficult to estimate as to how much of GIS is being used and what are the areas GIS has gone into. It is hoped that this conference containing very distinguished GIS scientists will guide Midas in the right direction. As mentioned in the introduction that the author is not here to talk about GIS but learn from you as to how best GIS can be employed in selecting sites for the installations of Midas' telecommunication technology developed to offer connectivity to all section of the Indian Community.
Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the help given by Dr. Koshy Varghese and Prof. Hema A Murthy of IITM, in preparing this paper, Ms K Rampriya for providing the plates and making them available on time and Mr. Shirish B. Purohit, Director of Midas for his encouragement to present this paper. The help offered by the others, directly or indirectly, is gratefully acknowledged.
References
- Clarke, Keith C; 1997 Getting Started with Geographic Information Systems; Prentice-Hall Inc.,
- Purohit, Shirish B; 2001 Wireless in Local Loop; Voice & Data, January 2001;pp.132 & 133
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