Introduction
Upto date topographic maps containing all the essential details viz. human settlements, roads railways, canals, water ways, agricultural, forest, and barren areas, water resources, mineral resources, etc. are essential for planned economic development of a country as well as for efficient administration, defence prepairedness, rural and urban development infrastructure development, disaster management, bio-diversity and environment conservation, education, health care, and family welfare projects. In other words, maps are powerful and essential tool for the planned development of India. But making of maps is expensive. A time has come when we must consider its cost-benefit relationship of map making and marketing.

Cost awareness
The making of maps involves aerial or satellite photography, ground control provision, map creation, ground truth and names verification, fair mapping or cartographic representation on and map reproduction, each of which steps costs money and the total expenditure on these processes including depreciation of costing precision survey and mapping instruments constitute the cost of map making. In the past, the entire task of national map making in India was the responsibility of Survey of India which was considered as a service and utility department. Thus, the selling price of Survey of India maps was based on cost of map reproduction and paper. This was a small fraction of the total cost of map making. Then Survey of India was subsidised for the other costs as is done to maintain the administrative personnel of state and central governments. Now, all over the world there is a growing awareness of the cost-benefits relationship of map making and map selling, which has led to the need for a fresh thinking on the subject.

Map Benefits
The geographers, explorers, defence personnel and economic development planners are all conscious of the benefits of uptodate geographic maps. In fact, the above category of people cannot do without accurate maps. The obvious corollary is that they should pay for the maps. The defence services utilise about eighty percent of geographic maps and pay for the maps. The hydro electric projects, irrigation canal surveys, mineral deposit surveys, forest surveys, urban development surveys, oil refinery surveys, atomic power plant surveys and other special purpose projects pay for the cost of surveying, mapping and printing. Therefore, it is worth while to spend more time on its analysis.

Keats (1985) has said that many map users find to their surprise that the apparently simple maps they propose to have turn out to be very expensive or that the scale which is financially feasible is inadequate for the purpose. In military any mapping, the map makes is normally working directly for the consumers. A particular set of maps may be deemed essential for military operations, and therefore the maps should be made even if very expensive to prepare. Keats says that the critical point is whether the user is willing or able to pay for the new maps. I consider that this is merely a problem of having the right attitude towards the map benefits. Most of the map users belong to state for central government departments and they should learn to live with map benefits and map costs.

To make maps more economical but useful Dr. F.S. Ormeling (1972), Secretary General of International Geographic Association, says that the geographers, the planners and other map users undertake training in map reading or map interpretation programs to participate more effectively in the map making process. Dr. Barbara Potchenik and Dr. A.H. Robinson (1975) hold similar views.

Dr. C. Board of Canada and Dr. Jacaques Bertin of France (1978) stress that the map users should be well conversant with the theories of cartographic communication to make maps economical and effective.

Map marketing
The essential elements of increased map use among common people scale, size, colours of city or town guide maps subdivision or tehsil maps, district maps and state maps. These should be discussed with district and state administration thoroughly. The price they are willing to pay has to be accertained. If the volume of map sales can be increased through increased map awareness and map reading, the cost per map is reduced.

Vanessa Lawrence, Director General and Chief Executive of Ordinance Survey, Great Britain’s National Mapping Agency has said that her mission is to lead Ordance Survey into the e-business era. The launch of OS Master Map, a highly detailed map, Covering the whole of Great Britain is scheduled for marketing by end of 2001. Survey of India may consult the Ordnance Survey for similar cost reduction in India.

The cost of maps may not always be a bottleneck as we find from the Metro City Maps of Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata produced and marketed by the Cartographic Division of Escorts Ltd. New Delhi.

From the agruments presented above it will be clear that there is a need for closer interaction and discussion between map makers and map users in India. The map awareness, cartographic communication and map reading qualities of the Indian map users have to be improved through organised programmes. The map users have to be educated in map benefits, map quality and standards.

It is also necessary for the map makers and map users to sit together to consider the map costing elements, and the percentage of cost to be recovered from map users. This will lead to better pricing of map products. At the end I congratulate CSDMS for selecting such a topic of national importance for discussion in an international forum.