In the emerging information market-place, geographic or geo-spatial information occupies pre-eminent position. In fact, the use of high quality reliable, geo-spatial information is critical to virtually every sphere of socio-economic activity – disaster management, forestry, urban planning, land management, agriculture, infrastructure development, business geographics etc. Much of geo-spatial data is scattered across a large number of organizations, largely in the public sector, following different standards and is not sufficiently integrated and networked to make it really useful to a large community of users.

There is widespread consensus, internationally, that spatial datasets need to be integrated to create what is called geo-spatial data infrastructure. Such infrastructures have been likened to information highways, linking a variety of databases and providing for the flow of information from local to national levels and eventually to the global community.

The foundation of any geo-spatial data infrastructure is the topographic map. The custodian of all topographic data in India has been the Survey of India, which established 233 years ago is probably the oldest scientific institution in the country.

I am happy that at the initiative of Survey of India and the India Space Research Organistion, the Task Force established for preparing a Vision and Strategy for the creation of a National Geospatial data Infrastructure by integrating and networking the data assets of the Survey of India, National Remote Sensing Agency, the National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organisation, the Geological Survey of India, the Forest Survey of India, the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Landuse Planning and a host of other Government agencies has achieved the task of preparing a strategy and framework document in such a short span of time. The creation of such an infrastructure will be a landmark development of enormous significance for a knowledge-enabled society.

January 31, 2000