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Technology
Restriction on Maps in India: An Anachronism that needs Removal
Every user organisation in India without exception has seriously suffered professionally for lack of easy availability of toposheets of restricted category. This has placed a major impediment to progress without serving the security needs. Aerial photographs falling within restricted or unrestricted areas are classified as Secret/Top secret for whole of India, despite the fact that these photographs are an important tool for research workers in cartography, environmental studies, geological interpretation, planning and development of growing towns and increasing urbanisation. Even Geological maps, without contour details, pertaining to "Restricted" areas, prepared by Geological Survey of India need clearance from the Ministry of Defence prior to their publication. In many cases, latitudes and longitudes are asked to be deleted and in some cases even exclusion scale for the map is suggested making a mockery of Geographical Information Systems and reducing the utility of geological maps. Geological Map of Cuddapah basin, published by GSI, has not been released for sale for a long time and it is now labelled as "restricted". Such an irrational policy denies credit to earth scientists who prepared the geological maps and restricts the free flow of an innocuous scientific information to fellow scientists. This practice of restriction of such valid geological information has placed India in a poor light among the comity of nations. This has caused tremendous frustration among scientist, research students and a host of other users, whose geological maps prepared in difficult field conditions at the expense of tax-payer’s money are gathering dust in dark almirahs.
Restricted maps cannot be exported without the prior approval of the Ministry of Defence. Also export of maps even of unrestricted area on scale of quarter inch and larger and the microfilms obtained from such maps depicting any part of India including its international boundaries and showing topographical features by contours, is prohibited. As a contrast, maps on large scale of any country are easily available in Western countries for purchase in any book shop.
Export of geoscientific thematic maps on a scale of 1:25,000 based on unrestricted toposheets in prohibited. For the sale of such maps to foreign agencies security vetting by the Ministry of Defence and clearance by Ministries of External Affairs and Finance would be essential.
Despite extensive cartographic’ geodetic, geophysical, aerial and space coverage of India, there is a woefully paucity of essential information made available to needy scientist, research workers and organisations so as to imperil the scientific progress of the country. Restriction on toposheets has deprived numerous mountaineering parties from India and abroad of all the essential maps information of the Himalaya and other mountain regions of the country, though some of the finest maps of Inaccessible mountains and their peaks were earlier prepared by hardy private climbers.
Restriction of Toposheet-irrelevant and ludicrous
India is committed to (i) Right of information (ii) Libersalisation and Globalisation of economy, (iii) Surge in information technology (IT), (iv) Modernisation of technology, (v) Major changes in the Official Secrets Act 1923. If these are out objectives for achievement before the beginning of the millenium, it calls for drastic changes in our comprehension of security for reasons cites below:
- Satellite has revolutionised map making process. Thousands of satellites are encircling the Earth photographing every inch of the land and sea. India already has a satellite with a resolution of 5.8 meters. The CARTOSAT (or IRS-P5) which India is planning to launch will be capable of providing resolutions of 2.5 meter in panchromatic band and a swath of 30 km. This satellite will have the capability of generating thematic maps with a scale of 1:5,000. The EOSAT, being launched by an American company, would offer 1 meter resolution. The satellite remote sensing system helps in recognising roads, buildings, all sorts of installations, waterbodies, rail and telephone lines, tree, vegetation, nature of crops, berthing of ships, airports, rocks, soil, dams, canals and even the registration number of vehicles. Satellites can keep count of vehicles moving on roads, concentration of people, even the smoke from the chimneys of hamlet. All this information is accessible through foreign commercial remote sensing agencies. The range and depth of satellite observation with regard to so called security aspects is so enormous, the information contained in 1:50,000 toposheet pales into insignificance. Thus restricting toposheets does not serve any purpose, other than negative impact on the working of Indian users.
- Defence Ministry insists on deletion of latitude and longitude before the publication of geological maps for security reasons! Thus hand held Global Positioning System (GPS) has revolutionised the process of accurate location and mapping by obtaining coordinates of any locality with pin-point accuracy and also its altitude. GPS can be used even under canopy of trees. GPS receivers use sophisticated, signal processing techniques to lock onto and track the GPS satellites. They have extensive application in combination with laser range finder, spectrum analysers, geiger counters, depth sounders, magnetometres etc. In the light of this, no security purpose is achieved by deleting the coordinates on geological maps and also by restricting levelling and trignometrical data from publication.
- The 1:250,000 scale toposheets which are restricted by the Survey of India on security consideration along external border and coast line are available for sale in the Stanford International Map Centre, London. Satellite imageries which provide all the geographical and topographical information are openly sold in book shops in foreign countries through toposheets with similar information are restricted in India on security considerations. What purpose has this restriction served except denying access to vital information to our own researchers.
- Remote Sensing techniques have brought about a sea change in vital data gathering. Almost every country in the world has access to this data which is marketed commercially by private agencies in the world. Satellites are capable of gathering data over a wide area and the data so available is in more homogenous in nature than collected through several ground stations and are also spatially continuous. The data collected through satellite are amenable to digitisation, easier processing, computation and easily converted to maps. This data serve as a foundation to GIS.
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