Right to Information
The other part of the map
Why it is so? Srikantia explains in the same article “During the colonial rule great importance was attached to the security of maps by the British Government of India. There was a strict rule that surveyors should treat their work as secret and not pass on copies even to local officers, civil or military, without proper authority. It is presumed that this was because many public officers were carrying papers in their charge to England, especially maps which could be put to sinister users”.
However, R N Srivastava differs, “Maps on various scales covering the entire territory of India are available for sale to public on one million and smaller scale. Topographical maps on larger scales, are being released to public except of areas near the international boundaries and coastline, which being sensitive for the external and internal security of the country, are being released on need to know basis. Generalised district maps of these areas on 1:250,000 scale are available to public. …The euphoria, that the Survey of India is coming on the way of development, is therefore baseless except for those segments of society who either do not know the procedures or have no respect for the law of the land.” (R N Srivastava, Survey of India’s plan to meet the country’s need for digital geographical data, Current Science, Vol 79, No 4, 25 August 2000).
Regarding the availability and accessibility of maps, I will not go into further detail as GIS@devlopment has already published a number of articles on this. The GIS@development, July-August, 1999, with a cover page “Enough is enough” triggered off a debate and brought the issue to the forefront. The fact remains that users have been facing difficulties in accessing the maps from national mapping agencies in this country even after 55 years of independence.
Life is changing…
In a last few decades, life has changed considerably. With the advent of GIS, GPS and Internet, neither the needs of the users nor the atmosphere in which our national mapping organisations used to operate remains the same. Moreover, every year reducing budget from government is also forcing these organisations to think on the lines of fund generation for their own survival. The private sector, even if it is not that organised, is also emerging as a key player. There is a need to think if users need large-scale maps in digital version, what to do with those paper maps which are mostly outdated even if they are excellent and of very high quality? You keep precious data to your heart but even if you want to sell it, are there people to buy it? If maps are made with so much of effort and investment they have to be used. All these clearly indicate on the need to change. And change with a sense of urgency. The issue needs to be addressed at two levels. If policy needs to be changed, there is also a need for the national mapping organisations to reorganise themselves to meet the present day challenges.
…So have to change policies
There are two perceptions regarding the map restriction policy. One is of the Ministry of Defence, which has its own reasons and appre-hensions regarding making available these data in public domain. After WTC attack, the way Government of the USA started withdrawing some of the spatial data from the public domain, this viewpoint has further strengthened. Given the vulnerability of India from terrorists attacks well demonstrated by the Parliament attack on December 13 last year, people who are responsible to defend the country will surely think twice about the implications of any decision, which they take to release spatial data in public domain. On the other hand, there are people who feel that given the present technological development especially with the arrival of high resolution satellite imageries such as IKONOS and QuickBird, GPS and the Internet, these restriction basically do not address the security issues for which they are meant. Moreover, the maps we try to restrict, at times are available outside the country.
We must find a way out? May be on the lines suggested by R Narasimha and S R Shetye in Current Science, Volume 79, No 4, 25 August 2000. They write, “…restricting access to data on the grounds of national security stems from two features of the systems: a) The system either lacks the mechanism for or does not possess confidence in the technical analysis that should lead to decisions to restrict access to data. In this situation playing safe in the face of fear of unanticipated uses of data determines policy at the expense of hard technical analysis and b) The agencies charged with the task of distribution of data have no incentive to encourage them, and restrictions in force seem to serve only to hinder dissemination. They further write, “We urge the government to follow a policy of conditional classification, rather than that of case-to-case clearances that is now the norm; i.e. all data acquired at public expense should be conveniently accessible to the public, except where clearly understood security considerations demand that access be restricted. Any other policy will, we believe, damage the national interest rather than protect it, by discouraging the creative exploitation of the data for scientific, commercial and cultural purposes.”