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GIS at Mirzapur allows testing of the full range of applications for identifying, diagnosing and resolving administrative problems that had been unresolved for decades.

In order to develop a pilot model city programme consistent with Uttar Pradesh realities, the Ganga Institutional and Community Development Project (ICDP) in Mirzapur was developed by the Governments of The Netherlands, India and Uttar Pradesh. This unique project provided a real world laboratory to develop and test a geographic and management information system for improving the municipal administration of a small Uttar Pradesh city. It was a remarkable achievement that even the basic municipal database could be developed and computerised. Quickly building on this foundation a complete property and infrastructure mapping programme was implemented to create the Mirzapur Geographic Information System.

Development of the first municipal geographic information system in India, not in a major metropolitan area, but in a small Uttar Pradesh city allowed testing of the full range of applications for identifying, diagnosing and resolving administrative problems that had been unresolved for decades. In the process misconceptions about the required database, development, operation and application of a geographic information system in India have been cleared up. In the process of establishing mastery over financial and infrastructure information the first steps have been taken to make Mirzapur a model city.

With a population of 200,000 the city of Mirzapur shares basic management and administrative problems with the many similar sized cities in Uttar Pradesh and India. In 1995 municipal staff could not provide basic financial or infrastructure information because of the near breakdown of administrative activities and the absence of any information management system. The city was bankrupt and conditions were getting worse with a widening gap between income and expenditure. At the commencement of the ICDP programme, the municipality’s current revenues were not sufficient to meet even the basic payroll, let alone to sustain the operation and maintenance of basic urban services.

In order to address this situation ICDP developed a successful intervention package that included immediate service improvements, property reassessment and investment planning. The primary programme objectives were the computerisation of property tax records, and the proper enumeration and mapping of all properties and infrastructure.



Computerisation of Tax Records
The first objective was to collect and computerise the critical property tax assessment registers for the 23,950 properties. The assessment registers are the only official property tax records and any changes in taxation should have reference to them. Moreover, even though the register may be disorganised and have not been updated for some years, they contain at least partial records of most of the urban property database. Any changes or the creation of any new registration system would need to be linked to the existing entry khatas to modern usable computer files as shown in figure 1.

Property Enumeration and Mapping
At the start of the project in 1995 the municipal tax department wanted to conduct a new property enumeration to register new properties. After existing records were computerised they were easily printed out to be used in the field as the basis of the property enumeration. Municipal staff conducted the enumeration between April and December 1996 under the supervision of consultants. At the start of the project the only property maps available were very dated and rough outline maps. From these, revenue ward maps were extracted by rough boundaries for use in the property enumeration. During the enumeration it was not difficult to include the field mapping of properties. Notional ward maps were taken to the field and used along with the assessment printouts to verify and update property information. Surveyors made current notations both on records and on maps in the field.

According to the enumeration the total number of buildings in Mirzapur is 34,278, with 41,134 individual units. Of these units 4,419 units or 11% are rented. The increase in properties that resulted from the enumeration was 44%. This benefit alone was sufficient to justify the enumeration. A property survey was conducted alongside the enumeration, based on a simple questionnaire, which emphasised location and basic property characteristics likely to affect property values. The key characteristics were: land use, type of construction, floor level of unit, neighbourhood, area, and front/back street access.



At the end of every day enumeration survey information was chec-ked, corrected and entered in computer files. Rough field notation maps were faired and fitted to the outline city map to create the first ever property tax maps for Mirzapur. Upon completion, the city property tax maps were scanned and digitised using MapInfo computer mapping software. After property numbers from the enumeration were added to the computerised maps, survey information was linked to establish the basic Mirzapur GIS as shown in figure 2.

GIS to Increase Revenues
The first use of the new Mirzapur Geographic Information System was to facilitate the municipal property assessment. There are few examples of successful reassessments in India largely because of the inability of manual recording keeping systems to manage and check the vast volume of data required in the process. With the Mirzapur GIS, a feasible reassessment methodology could be developed and implemented without concern for data management.

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