ESRI has been in India for quite some time and is presently working with both the government and the private. Where, in your understanding, lies the key application areas of geospatial sciences in India?
Usage of geospatial technology in India has gone through a paradigm shift in the last decade. In the early days, GIS was mostly used in research projects in the area of natural resource management, defence, remote sensing, cartography et al. In the last few years we have seen several initiatives in the area of business GIS, telecom, power, location based services, disaster management, urban planning among others. Several pilot projects have graduated to enterprise deployments, which involve multi-tier architecture, interoperability and integration with other, IT services. Another high growth area is Web based geospatial services with browser-enabled geo-processing capabilities.

If you have acquired spatial data in the recent past for a purpose what according to you had been the main hurdles?
We have not acquired any spatial data in the recent past. However, the possible hurdle could lack of awareness on the part of several users about the current policy on spatial data dissemination.

In wake of the growing significance of the relationship between 'business' and 'geospatial sciences', how important do you think has been spatial data/services in the market, for various organisation's functioning, growth or management?
Spatial data plays extremely critical role in the functioning of any organization whether government or private. Most of the decisions taken by organizations have a geographic dimension and hence availability of reliable geospatial data would lead to more informed decisions. The type of decisions could range from location of new manufacturing facility, logistics for movement of raw material or finished goods, business promotional plans, location of warehouses and distribution channels to allocation of development funds by government departments, etc.

Can you elaborate on the cost benefit implications for any agency to embark upon GIS in comparison to a pre and post GIS phase?
It is difficult to estimate cost benefit of a GIS project. It would depend on the nature of the application among others. There are several low hanging fruits like logistics, property tax management by municipal corporations where quick gains are possible. However, some other projects may have longer gestation period and real benefits would accrue in longer term.

How would you explain the government's role - a more aware, liberal or open entity over the years,in terms of geospatial data access or policies?
I think government is today very aware of the strategic importance of geospatial information and its role in various infrastructure and other projects. As we have heard in various geomatics conferences, government is adopting a more pragmatic approach towards making geospatial data available to the end users. NSDI India is one of the strategic initiatives that the government has taken to make geospatial data available.

What has been ESRI's role in education of the Indian geomatics community?
ESRI India Education Services has been playing a very constructive role in increasing awareness of geomatics technology among the user community. We conduct regular training programmes on GIS technology and also various ESRI courses. We also work very closely with several government departments and ministries to build customized courseware to expose serving bureaucrats to this technology and its applications like forestry, policy planning, etc.