Web based Geographic Information System for handicraft industry

Angshuman Dutta
Research Scholar, Center For Rural Development
and Technolgy, IIT, Delhi

A. K. Gosain
Professor, Civil Engineering Department, IIT, Delhi

Rajendra Prasad
Chief Scientific Officer, Center For Rural
Development and Technolgy, IIT, Delhi

Abstract
A web based information system has been developed to promote the handicraft industry in the country. The system has been developed using the latest GIS technologies. This information system facilitates the handicrafts industry in terms of providing online information on various craft production centers, distribution of artisans, exporter locations and on the participatory NGO's. It also facilitates in identifying the various civic amenities available at a location. The information is made available at three different levels i.e. Country level, where the information are aggregated State-wise; State level where the information is aggregated at district-wise; and at Tehsil level where the information is aggregated village-wise. The information system has been designed using different GIS and CAD tools. The vector data has been generated using CAD engines and then processed using GIS interfaces and finally been made net-compliant using various controls of spatial map servers. RDBMS engine is used for maintaining the non-spatial data and customization is done using GUI tools. Technologies like HTML, ASP's and JAVA scripts are made use of for designing the client end interfaces.

Analytical capabilities have been provided to monitor the progress of different players of the industry. Moreover, fund location for various schemes become simple using this system. Locating potential sites for expanding different crafts can also be done through the system. The information system has been designed under the sponsorship of Department of Handicrafts, Ministry of Textiles, Govt. of India, taking UP as a pilot case. It is likely to be extended to the entire country in due course of time.

Introduction
In an attempt to computerize and thereby enhance the growth of the handicrafts industry of the country the ministry entrusted the responsibility to IIT, Delhi to conceptualise and develop a pilot application for Uttar Pradesh to begin with. During the course of development, realising the potential of the dissemination of the application, if put on the web, a conscious decision was taken to make the application web compliant and dynamic using Geographic Information System. The information system has been designed to address different players of the sector. It is also been envisaged to contain services for sustainability of the concept in terms of revenue generation. In its present form the system hosts a wide range of information as listed below:

• Spatial information on various craft dispositions across the state
• Entire artisan information comprising details of their income, education, raw materials, basic facilities available to them etc
• Spatial information on the various primary facilities available such as road and railway networks, education centers, health centers, markets etc
• Information on the NGO's, their activities and various schemes associated with the sector
• Information on exporters

Apart from all these the system provides many commercial utilities for the promotion of the handicrafts industry. These utilities include a panorama on Indian handicrafts, yellow page services, market surveys and opinion polls on various products, online registration with the ministry, help desks etc. E-commerce facilities for online booking of orders, fetching strategic information for raising new industries and promotion of sales will be soon added. The spatial nature of the application will make this application an extremely efficient planning, monitoring and fund allocating tool for the ministry. The application as on date has been tested on the local network of IIT, Delhi and is awaiting uploading on the world wide net.

Conceptualisation
The application comprises a data server, which holds the non-spatial data and links to the spatial objects, a map server consisting of various map controls to display, analyze and upload the spatial data and an user-friendly interface for navigating through the application and its various utilities. The client-end interfaces are designed using HTML and Active Server Pages (ASP's). Each request from the client is passed on to the application server, which fetches the desired non-spatial information from the data server and generates a resulting map display through the various map controls and subsequently uploads the same using the map server to the user. Figure below shows a schematic representation of the application.

Fig:1 Schematic Diagram of the application