Maharashtra working plan incorporates GIS The inventory data collected from the field used to be partially processed by the field inventory teams themselves. Thereafter this processed data was sent to the Chief Forest Statistician for its statistical analysis. In this process lot of time of the field units was wastedand the whole process was very lengthy. In order to overcome these shortcomings an Inventory Management System has been designed by the author which not only processes the data but acts as a decision support system for the working plan officer to use the inventory information much more meaningfully. Moreover the data captured through the system is dynamically linked to GIS environment to make the whole system much more powerful planning and monitoring tool. The above mentioned integration of MIS and GIS is not only a powerful planning tool for the Working Plan Officer but these digital databases are very potent decision support and monitoring tools for the implementing managers in the real time mode also. In the GIS environment they can make innumerable queries to find answers to their day to day management questions. A typical workflow used for the preparation of working plans is shown in the given flow chart.  Fig1:Typical Workflow used for preparation of Working Plans Different type of treatment is specified for each of the above categories of areas. The actual task of judging and delineating the areas on the ground is left to the last man in the field. Each division has hundreds of coupes due for working each year hence the above task is assigned to many persons with varying degrees of experience and knowledge. The treatment map is prepared based on ocular estimation. This process results in rather inaccurate and inconsistent treatment maps. All the treatments are supposed to be carried out according to these treatment maps. Hence the weakness of the present practice is self-evident. Working plan officer too has to base his calculations on rough estimations, as he does not have very accurate and consistent stock maps to work with. Moreover the input for him is rather fixed and it is almost impossible for him to generate many alternate strategies before picking the best ones. This task of preparation of treatment maps/ stock maps can be achieved quickly with much more accuracy and consistency by using remotely sensed data in GIS environment. Working plan officers can not only provide the territorial staff with accurate treatment maps but they can improve their own calculations of yield etc. also. This has been achieved for more than half a dozen divisions in the state of Maharashtra and all future revisions of working plans are proposed to be based on this approach. Besides delineating the coupe areas on the basis of crown density and physiographic features working plan officer requires an extensive forest inventory data to base his prescriptions in terms of different treatments. We are using random start systematic line sample plot method for inventory data collection. The whole area of the division is divided into grids of 600m X 600m on the Survey of India topo sheets. These maps are provided to the field inventory units. They locate these points on the ground by chain & compass survey and then layout sample plots for tree enumeration and regeneration survey. So for every 36 ha. area on the ground we have a sample plot. The inventory data collected from the field used to be partially processed by the field inventory teams themselves. Thereafter this processed data was sent to the Chief Forest Statistician for its statistical analysis. In this process lot of time of the field units was wastedand the whole process was very lengthy. In order to overcome these shortcomings an Inventory Management System has been designed by the author which not only processes the data but acts as a decision support system for the working plan officer to use the inventory information much more meaningfully. Moreover the data captured through the system is dynamically linked to GIS environment to make the whole system much more powerful planning and monitoring tool. The above mentioned integration of MIS and GIS is not only a powerful planning tool for the Working Plan Officer but these digital databases are very potent decision support and monitoring tools for the implementing managers in the real time mode also. In the GIS environment they can make innumerable queries to find answers to their day to day management questions. A typical workflow used for the preparation of working plans is shown in the given flow chart.
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