Is there a way out?
Most government sector agencies do not understand the value of their data, and either do not release it or do not know how to price it because they do not understand the market.
No data, no maps, no policy… Even if they exist, they are not accessible. If you want to generate your own data or maps, then there are legal hassles. The saga of agony of GIS industry in India is long. It is more pitiable, as the rest of the world, particularly the developed one, is taking a number of initiatives to harness the potential of spatial data and mapping technologies for their development. The problems are not at technological level but are more on policy front. There is a woeful absence of a conducive atmosphere for the growth of GIS industry and worse, not much initiatives on the anvil. GI in India - the status In fact, in India there is no dearth of data in India. It is a different story that these data are not accessible. As in any other part of the world, in India also, the Government is the biggest generator and consumer of geographic information (GI). To understand the data dissemination of GI, let’s have a look at table 1, which is an attempt to make some sense of the present policy/practice of some important GI generators/stakeholders in the country. The following inferences may be drawn from the table 1. Good Institutional Infrastructure We have a good institutional structure to collect data. Thanks to vision of India’s first Prime Minster Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, India has a network research institutes which collect and maintain data on every conceivable socially and scientifically relevant subject on the earth. We have institutes on sugarcane, buffaloes, goats, rice and any other geographically relevant subject one can imagine. Working for themselves Published data is available mostly with agencies that have been producing it since British rule. Most of the new research institutes/agencies formed after independence failed to develop newer data dissemination strategies. Agriculture and health sector may be an exception, where steps were taken to take scientific research to the masses. But the numerous laboratories established under the aegis of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and Department of Science and Technology are doing a commendable job in terms of data collection in their respective fields. But there is hardly any policy of these agencies to even develop intra-laboratory data documentation and dissemination systems. Scientific laboratories are more research/ paper publication oriented (and now the tendency to become patent oriented), rather than people oriented. Still Analogue Lack of digital data products shows how badly these agencies are out of tune with new technology and time. E-illiteracy Few GI stakeholders have a web site. And fewer of them put any worthwhile information on their sites. This displays the poor understanding of these organisations about the importance of information dissemination and global competitiveness. Many of them still do not have an email address! Who Consumes data? Interestingly, the government, which prefers to hold data to itself, happens to be the biggest consumers. For example the revenue generated by NRSA during 1998-99 (up to Feb 99) is Rs. 1430 lakhs from various segments of users (figure 1). 83% of the revenue is generated from none but the various government departments (figure 2). Unfortunately, there has never been any investigation on the question which geographic data have been sold to whom at what price. NRSA figures for three years also show that private sector (which presumably are NGOs and private sector) is growing at a fast rate (figure 1). Some other conclusions we can safely draw from the table are:
Information Scenario in USA, UK and India: A comparison It is worthwhile to compare the information scenario of India vis-à-vis US and UK (Table 2). In US and UK both the primary sources for spatial databases are government and the private sector. In UK government sector is allowed to copyright the information sources, little is available in public domain. The relevant information available to public domain is generally outdated as it comes to public domain after the expiry of copyright but to the contrary in US where government doesn’t assert its copyright on databases and hence, these data automatically becomes public domain resources (figure 2 and 3). Both of the US and UK systems have their advantages and disadvantages. The UK set up, although produces high quality public data products, results in dwindling supply of public domain data. In US on the other hand, data are available at decreased end-user costs and offers easy market entry for small innovators but the same set up has the limitation of recovering development costs and leads to unregulated re-dissemination of data. Since growth of GIS is linked with the availability of affordable spatial data, one can visualise that, as compared to UK, US is better positioned for the growth of GIS industry. As far as India is concerned, it has to go long way. In India, most of the available data have government copyright. There is scarcity of data in the public domain and far more scarcity of commercially copyright databases (figure 4 and 5). Do I know what data I have? Another startling fact which emerges from this comparison is that a data generating agency will only copyright that database, which it ‘knows’ it has. Many a times, the government agencies are unaware of the amount of data being generated by their day to day activities. The situation is pitiable. Volumes of data are there in various departments, which are dumped, unnoticed. These data although in public domain are beyond reach of the of the public or government agencies themselves. These departments are yet to assert their copyright. Moreover, the issue of copyright comes later when these data are exposed to the risk of copying i.e these data are documented and published. Also, another associated issue is that if a government were not allowed copyright, would this create a disincentive to produce GIS data or other electronic records. Who decides the rules of the game? The formulation of policies generally comes in domain of the government. However, these decisions are now being influenced by international forces and market as well. International Donors Recently, Internationally Monetary Fund has virtually forced India to announce a data dissemination policy for its economic and financial data. Under this ‘agreement’, data warehouse is being created with Department of Statistics, Government of India which is then put on IMF website. Similarly other donors like World Bank, UNDP, GTZ, CIDA etc. give high emphasis on the use of GIS and Remote Sensing technology in projects funded by them. They also give due emphasis on documentation and dissemination of data generated by them. Market Forces Market forces are also playing a major role in influencing the policy decisions of the government and at times they have different agenda than that of the government. Since the process of liberalisation, these forces have become very strong and some time even set the tone of change. For example dominant suppliers, notably Microsoft, are strongly influential, especially in setting de facto standards and in setting price levels. For example breaking all the price and mental barrier, of GIS being an ‘elite’ product, Microsoft has launched MapPoint, a desktop map visualisation and analysis software at the cost of US $ 109. And this includes four years of demographic data for 1980, 1990, 1999 and 2003 from US$ 109 MapPoint - desktop GIS in the Microsoft Office Suite. The data includes population, household sizes, household income, and median population by age and population by age. By 2000 MapPoint for UK and by 2002 MapPoint for Europe will be out. If the pace remains same, no doubt by 2005 - MapPoint for Asia will be in the market. The situation will be not too different in India, if government does not come in the way. Last year digital data of Delhi was sold by Eicher at Rs. 1 lakh a copy (it is a different story that it has run into trouble on various grounds of security). This year the digital data of Delhi is being sold by Softek in 1999 at Rs. 1,000 a copy, although a different product. This is the pace of change of the market. Government The Indian Remote Sensing programme, Chandrababu Naidu and the IT Task Force of Government of India have been the major push factors for development of GIS in India. The Internet boom has also started to catch on. The web sites on India are filling a void – that of social data infrastructure of the country. Election Commission plans to put all the election rolls on the net before the next elections. Environment ministry is putting the status of various projects submitted to it for clearance on its website. The Delhi government plans to have all the basic governmental information, forms for applications for various government services, available on the web. One can access yellow pages of Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Mumbai and many other cities on-line. Even MTNL directory is available on the net. Nearly every ministry of Central Government has acquired a web site address. Many state governments such as Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and even some of the municipal authorities too such as Almora, Pimpri-Chichwad have also joined the e-race. These e-initiatives may not appear to be directly linked with GIS, they are bound to help in creating a conducive atmosphere for the growth of GIS in the country. Need of the hour When US, Europe, Australia, Singapore, Hongkong and other countries are discussing about Regional Geographic Information Infrastructure and Global Information Infrastructure, the country must develop without delay
The panacea What if we do not do it? India does lose its global competitiveness by not making available core set of data to public. Like electricity, water, clean air, good human resource, information is also a vital factor for attracting investments, increasing tourism, boosting trade and improving quality of life of the masses. So instead of agencies finding n number of reasons to hide data, they should try to look for n+1 reasons to share data. By restricting data, we make the entry of new players in the market difficult and decrease the chances of innovation. So we ensure that we will never be able to grow like ESRI, Intergraph or MapInfo in India, and remain dependent on US, Europe and Australia for new GIS tools. We have been trying to avoid discussing all these problems for decades now. And see where we have landed up. It may not be a surprise to know that our relative spending on GI data acquisition is nearly of the same level as those of US, UK or Australia (based on a rough calculation done by the author, the total budget of all the GI agencies mentioned in Table 1 is more than Rs. 2,000/- crores! Considering the fact that the cost of labour in India is 1/7 th of the US, we spend around 14,0000/- crores by US standards, which means 3 billion US dollars. The estimated expenditure by US in GI acquisition every year is around one billion dollars. Do we spend more than US in GI data acquisition and gain less out of it? I would like to be proved wrong! In spite of the high spending done by us, we are still crying for base maps, guide maps. Despite policy initiatives in Europe, the European companies have only 20% market share in European market and 5% in the global GIS market. The rest of the market is mostly with US companies. And in India, where 100% Indian GIS market is dominated by foreigners and Indians seem to be having no strategy to change this situation even in a small way. Table 1: Status of Data Policy/Practice indicators in data generating agencies in India
Table 2: A Comparative Information Scenario of US, UK and India
|