Technology
NGDI: Is India Prepared?
Ravi Gupta
Centre for Spatial Database Management and Solutions (CSDMS)
A - 13, Sector 22, NOIDA 201 301
Tel: +91-118-4544410, 4527044, 4554335, 4535436
Email: Ravi.Gupta@csdms.org
Abstract
Geographic information is today being extensively used in decision-making processes because it has become a fundamental element to provide better understanding about one’s surrounding. Sustainable development relies on the control of the consequences of public decisions regarding natural resources, people and the involved interrelationships. More importantly, geographic information is a tool of democracy, which must be used in public debate, as it enables visualisation of the impact of the planning decisions on the society and to explain the rationale behind a particular decision. Today, most of the countries are set to exploit the potential of mapping technology. The present paper tries to assess India’s preparedness in adopting the concept of National Geospatial Data Infrastructure (NGDI).
Economic Imperatives for Building up an NGDI
Governments are spending large sums of money on collection of geographic information knowingly or unknowingly. For example
- US spends more than 4 billion dollars per
year on geographic data acquisition 1.
- In UK today, over 40 government
departments and other organisations produce geospatial data for
their own needs, spending approximately 400 million pounds
annually on data collection and assembly2.
- In France, the public financing of geographic information projects represents 0.17% of public development aid 3.
Other countries are also spending huge amount of money for data generation, acquisition, documentation and dissemination. Recent estimates show that the worldwide investment in GIS technologies by government and private sector ranges from US $ 3.3 billions4 to more than $ 8 billion5, 6 with annual growth rate reaching nearly thirty per cent.
And surely these investments are not without reasons. A report by, Economic Studies and Strategies Unit of PriceWaterhouse, on the economic benefits arising from the acquisition and maintenance of the nation’s land and geographic information has estimated that for the period 1989-94 approximately $1 billion has been spent in Australia on investment in geographic data. This investment produced benefits within the economy in the order of $4.5 billion. The study also found that this investment has saved users approximately $ 5 billion, meaning thereby that there is a saving of $5 on the investment of $1. The study concluded that the existing infrastructure for supplying data had provided information to users at a lower cost than alternative methods. Had this infrastructure not been in place, and users had been forced to meet their data requirements from other sources, their costs would have been 6 times higher; if the benefits were to continue, an additional investment of 30% of existing funding levels would have been required to meet the growing demand for data usage7. Thus it is clear that governments all over the world realise that geographic information is an important infrastructure for a nations development.
The government is the biggest geographic data generator. It happens to be the biggest consumer also. In India, for example, out of the Rs. 14.30 crore revenue of National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) from sale of remote sensing imagery in 1998-99, 83% revenue was from the government departments themselves8.
India’s Strengths in Geographic Information
Good geographic information acquisition Infrastructure
India has a good institutional infrastructure for geographic data collection. There is a network of institutions collecting information on every conceivable socially and scientifically relevant subject. The Survey of India and the Indian Remote Sensing Satellites are the most important generators of this data.
Survey of India
The Survey of India (SOI), which was established 232 years back in 1767, is responsible for all topographical and development surveys in India. India, with an area of 32,87,263 km2, is covered by both topographical maps and geographical maps. The topographical maps are on scales of 1:25,000, 1:50,000 and 1:250,000, which are ideally suited for the professional work of geologists, geographers, foresters, engineers, planners, tourists, trekkers, mountaineers and others.
India is covered by nearly 385 toposheets on 1:2,50,000 scale which are also called Degree Sheets, where each degree sheet has 16 toposheets of 1:50,000 scale. At present the entire country is covered by 1:50,000 rigorous metric surveys in more than 5000 toposheets. This is undoubtedly an impressive record for any country in the world. Each 1:50,000 scale sheet contains four 1:25,000 scale sheets. More than 35% of the country has also been covered on 1:25,000 scale. Therefore, there is no dearth of modern toposheets9.
Indian Remote Sensing Programme
The satellite based remote sensing was established in the country with the launch of the first operational Indian Remote Sensing Satellite, IRS-1A in 1988 which was followed, by the successful launch of IRS-1B in 1991. IRS-1A and 1B satellites provide imagery with spatial resolution of 72.5m and 36.25m respectively. These satellites have been providing data for monitoring and management of our natural resources and environment. IRS-1C and IRS-1D launched in 1995 and 1997 respectively incorporate enhanced capabilities in terms of spatial resolution, spectral bands, stereoscopic imaging, Wide Field Coverage and revisit capability. They provides 5.8m spatial resolution in panchromatic mode. India also launched Oceansat in 1999 with Ocean Colour Monitor (OCM) and a Multi-frequency Scanning Microwave Radiometer (MSMR) on its board. India plans to launch Cartosat with 2.5m panchromatic data resolution by the year 2000. This satellite will have a cutting-edge technology in terms of sensor systems and provide sate-of-the-art capabilities for digital terrain modeling, contour mapping (~5 m contour levels) and many specific needs of cartographic applications. The data provided by Cartosat will be useful for giving cadastral level information.
The Indian Remote Sensing programme has been a major factor for the growth of importance of geographic information in India. The National Natural Resource Management System (NNRMS) programme by the Department of Space has played a key role in using the capabilities of the Indian Remote Sensing satellites for the benefit of the masses10.
Other institutions involved
Many other agencies and initiatives of the government like Natural Resource Data Management Systems (NRDMS) and National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organisation (NATMO) under the Department of Science and Technology, National Informatics Centre, have played an important role in geographic data generation in the country. Hosts of other organisations under various central and state governments are also involved in geographical data acquisition in the country. A summary of the main data producers is provided in the Table 1. Moderate estimate of the total budget of the listed organisations in the table is more than Rs. 2,000 crores per year, which is comparable to spending on geographic information done by Australia or US, if we take the operating costs in these countries are nearly seven times that of India.