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Analysis of intra-district disparities for Dehradun district using GIS technique
The TABLES module of ARC/INFO, which has most of the
capabilities of a Data Base Management System, has been used for creating and
managing the non-spatial data. These attributes of all villages are then
associated with the corresponding spatial features.
An important aspect of integrated area-level planning is the combined analysis of the thematic natural resource data and the tabular socio-economic data. For this, a criteria based analysis of the integrated data bases has been carried out in GIS environment. User interactive program has been developed in GIS using Arc Macro Language (AML) of ARC/INFO GIS software. The weightage to each facility has been assigned to reflect the true indication of its status in Dehradun district. In the present work, a centrality formula for assigning the weightage to different facilities has been used. It is based upon the principle that the greater the scarcity of function, the greater is its importance in terms of centrality and thus the higher its weightage (Khan 1990). The weight of ith village (wi) can be written as:  where, N = Total number of villages Fi = Number of villages having a facility The composite index for ith village (Ci) for all the facilities is then computed from:  where, Xij = Value of jth function in ith village m = Number of sub-functions in ith village Finally, Composite Block Development Index (CBDI) for each block has been computed from the mean of VDI of all villages in that block. This index is considered to be an indicator of development in that block. The CBDI values, thus computed for each block, by doing programming using AML in GIS have been shown in Table 1. The ranking of various blocks of Dehradun district, based upon their relative development, has been shown in Fig. 2, which has been generated using ARCPLOT module. In the figure, the village boundary map has also been shown. This overlay is very useful to carry out analysis based upon interactive queries for each village by linking it with the database of various facilities. Table 1: CBDI for all blocks of Dehradun district.  It is found that Vikasnagar block is the most developed and Chakrata block the least developed in Dehradun district. So, more financial resources would be needed to further develop Chakrata block, at par with the facilities of Vikasnagar block. This finding is required to be confirmed from visits to the area before any concrete conclusion is drawn. Next objective of this study is to analyse the least developed block in details and identify the villages that require the development of aforesaid facilities. This work is in progress and results shall be published elsewhere in due course of time.  Fig.2: Ranking of Blocks based upon CBDI A large data base consisting of nine major facilities in Dehradun district has been created using GIS technique. An approach has been developed to use this database to assess the relative development in all six blocks of the district. GIS is found to be extremely useful to establish links amongst all the facilities as well as to compute the various indices quickly on the basis of different weightage assigned to different facilities. The database is quite flexible in its design such that it can be easily updated and any complex transformation equation can be used involving all the facilities. GIS is found to be a powerful tool for data integration and modelling for district level planning. In India, GIS is not being used by planners and decision makers as intensively as it should have been used. It is hoped that with the increased awareness and reduced cost of hardware and software in future, GIS technology will become a part of our life for planning even day to day activities. References
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