Data Sources
The data for the information system has been collected from different sources. The National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) has provided the artisan data at the village level. The Information of the various schemes and organizations associated with the industry has been provided by the Office of the Handicrafts, Ministry of Textiles, and was made available at the district level. Similarly, exporter data was also made available at the district level by the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH). To show these informations spatially at different scales base maps at equivalent scales were required. Therefore, maps of different scales such as, state level maps having district boundaries, district level maps having tehsil boundaries and tehsil level map showing village boundaries have been used. These are census maps based on Survey of India maps. Information on various primary amenities was also extracted from all these maps at different levels.
Application Design
The entire exercise began with a requirement analysis involving the clients. Conceptual design followed the requirement analysis and the database was designed using RDBMS package. The non-spatial data came in different formats i.e., electronic, hardcopies etc., and required various levels of processing. Specialized interfaces had to be written for populating these hard-copied and ASCII data. The spatial data were also processed simultaneously. The spatial data, which came as hard-copied maps, were scanned, geo-referenced and finally vectorised using different vectorsing utilities running on CAD engines. These vector data were then processed using GIS tools for topology building and establishing links with the non-spatial data. Once the data was populated the application to analyze, extract and display the information was developed. This exercise was followed by development of the client end and backend interfaces.
Application Layout and Functionalities
The application opens with its homepage containing linkages to the following utilities:
- About Us
- Panorama
- Information System
- Yellow Pages
- Market Surveys
- Registration
A brief description of these utilities is as under:
About us
This contains information on the intent and scope of the site
Panorama
This utility showcases the Indian handicrafts. Information on different crafts, the tradition and history associated with them, the location of their origin, the raw materials used and process followed constitutes this
segment
Information System
This utility is the heart of the application and provides the user the insight of the Indian handicraft industry through a user-friendly GIS based dynamic information system. The page opens up with the State map showing the district boundaries and hyperlinks to different utilities as mentioned above. Moreover a craft hyperlink is also provided. The craft hyperlink leads to an interactive window where one can pick a craft and subcraft and further select a level of his choice in terms of a district, tehsil or entire state and submit a query. The query returns the locations conforming to the request. The query can be further filtered through conditions. Once the craft dispositions are located, hyperlinks to artisan information system, NGO's involved and concerned exporters on the selected craft are made available. The artisan hyperlink lists various categories of information on the artisans such as, their income, education, raw material and design used, the facilities available to them etc. Each of these categories has filters on different fields so that the choices can be narrowed down. Similarly the NGO and Exporter hyperlink takes to the section which displays the information on these players in details. For changing the level of maps (i.e, district level or tehsil level) one can either click on the map or can select a location from the location selection box as mentioned earlier. The same rationale is followed for the other levels. At the district and tehsil level information on the various primary amenities such as road and rail networks, education centers, health centers, markets, police stations, post and telegraph offices, streams, canal and water bodies are also provided as series of check boxes and it returns the query as different themes on the map upon submission.
Yellow Pages
This utility contains yellow pages for three categories of sellers namely artisans, exporters and other small and big traders. Once a user selects a product it lists the yellow pages available in each of the three categories mentioned above. Upon further selection it navigates to the individual pages. The pages contain contact information of the person or organisation, the various products, their codes, images and prices.
Market surveys
This segment contains the name of different products and crafts. The buyers or followers of Indian handicrafts can browse to this page, select their product or craft or both and give their opinion by checking on the rating boxes provided. These rating are processed and a report can be obtained on the prospects of different products and crafts.
Registration
Since there is ample value addition to the basic information, the registration facility has been formulated enabling the service providers to generate adequate revenue to support the upkeep of the site. Moreover the yellow page services and reports of the market surveys will also serve as a step in this direction.