The Internet boom coupled with e-governance and computerisation initiatives in the government has put Indian IT industry on the growth path. While the quest for geographic information on the Internet has led to creation of sites like mapsofindia.com, manchitra.com, ibsaxena.com, all offering different levels of Indian maps on the net, the E-governance initiatives have created sites like andhrapradesh.com, cidco.org, tiruvaruronline.com, which offer some geographic information about their regions. The Internet hype has also encouraged data generating agencies like GSI (gsi.gov.in), Census Department (censusindia.org) to go online and provide at least some basic information about their activities online. A report by the Gartner India group says that India records the highest Internet user growth rate in the Asia-Pacific region and is the fifth largest Internet-user market in the same region. The report estimated that the number of regular Internet users in the country at 3.1 million. While we are all going gung-ho over the Internet growth in the country, one is stunned by the fact that data on India, if any, on the web, mostly resides in foreign web sites. For example, for agriculture data and maps of India we may go to US Department of Agriculture site (www.usda.gov), for forest data and maps click the FAO (www.fao.org), for finding the weather in India, you may click to www.weather.com. Although we are touted as having perhaps the largest number of database professionals in the world, we hardly have any data to share with even with our citizens. Our government system and departments still work in the British era where age-old typewriter of the ‘babu’ still rules the roost. If the present rate of adoption of new technology in the government is any indication, the transformation of ‘babus’ to ‘e-babus’ may take years if not decade(s). In a huge country like India, it will take mammoth effort for fulfilling the geographic information needs of various levels and types of users. Encouraging private and the non-government sector to play a key role in data dissemination through forward-looking policies is the only way out. Although initiatives at the level of the Prime Minister of India and Chief Ministers of various states have started making a difference in delivery of government information to public, but surprisingly, the science and technology institutions have been lagging in this field. This is causing immense harm to the growth of GIS in the country and this issue needs to be urgently addressed. The government has placed the Freedom of Information Bill before the parliament. Although, being criticised by many for not placing the Right to Information Bill, this initiative by the government may still go a long way in removing restrictions on the scientific databases in the government which, in turn, will be beneficial to GIS and Internet GIS. But when will we get water (data) in our taps (Internet)? |