Introduction

India is fast moving into being an information and knowledge society – especially with the emphasis on Information Technology and “transparent” e-governance. The next decade will see further large-scale investment in communications technology as India moves to exploit the full potential of the information age. Recent initiatives by the Government, including the IT Act, as well as announced plans for private and public investment, make it clear that within a few years an unprecedented capability will exist for sharing of data along "electronic superhighways."

Amongst the variety of datasets that would be involved, spatial (or map) information will be a major “content”. These Spatial information sets are vital to make sound decisions at the local, regional, state and central level planning, implementation of action plans, infrastructure development, disaster management support, and business development. Natural Resources management, flood mitigation, environmental restoration, land use assessments and disaster recovery are just a few examples of areas in which decision-makers are benefiting from spatial information.

Until recently, maps (usually in paper form) have been a mainstay for a wide variety of applications and decision-making. This is changing as more spatially referenced data and information on a wider variety of topics or themes (e.g., population, land use, economic transactions, hydrology, agriculture, climate, soils) are being produced, stored, transferred, manipulated, and analyzed in digital form.

A new wave of technological innovation is allowing us to capture, store, process and display an unprecedented amount of map information about our country (and the Earth) and a wide variety of environmental and cultural phenomena. Much of this information will be " spatially referenced" - that is, it will refer to some specific geographic place or have 2/3-dimension coordinates to depict its location. With the availability of satellite-based remote sensing data and the organisation of spatial databases around a Geographical Information Systems (GIS), combined with the Global Positioning System (GPS), the process of semantic spatial information systems has now became a reality. The advent of GIS technology has transformed spatial data handling capabilities and made it necessary for re-examining the roles of government with respect to the supply and availability of geographic information. Using GIS technology, users are now able to process maps - both individually and along with tabular data and "crunch" them together to provide a new perception - the spatial visualization of information.

With the current emphasis on digital spatial information, new products (representing the conversion of paper map information, the enhancement of that information, and the collection of new data) are appearing with greater frequency and with greater ease. Several factors have contributed to the advancement of digital technology for collecting, handling, and processing spatial data. Perhaps the most important are the relative ease with which digital spatial data can be edited and updated (no more handwritten notes on paper maps); improved integration of operations between administrative departments within agencies (departments share and contribute to spatial data as a common resource); data management and storage; more effective analysis and decision making (manual analysis of paper maps is exceedingly tedious and costly); and faster access to current data (changes are available to all users in near real time).

With this increased production comes the potential for substantial duplication of effort, as virtually identical digital products appear from different agencies to satisfy their often very specific needs. The cost of creating and maintaining digital spatial data is high, so it is particularly important that data created at considerable cost and effort be shareable, that costly data collection not be duplicated, and that the collected data be fully utilized to realize all of their potential benefits.

In India, Government continues to play a major role in inventory and mapping of major national resources and establishing a map information base in the country. Thus, Government has a major stake in managing the spatial information as government agencies are not only the main external providers of spatial information for most operational applications of GIS but also because they exert a profound influence on national developments as a result of "a cocktail of laws, policies, conventions and precedents which determine the availability and price of spatial data". A major challenge over the next decade will be to increase the use of spatially referenced data to support a wide variety of decisions at all levels of society. Using an effective, efficient, and widely accessible infrastructure, spatial data could be readily transported and easily integrated both thematically (e.g., across environmental, economic, and institutional data bases) and hierarchically (e.g., from local to national and eventually to global levels). Transparent access to myriad databases could provide the information for countless applications, e.g., facility management, real estate transactions, taxation, land-use planning, transportation, emergency services, environmental assessment and monitoring, and research. Work on these applications could take place in schools, offices, and homes across the nation. In addition, these activities will lead to new value- added services and market opportunities in emerging spatial information industries.

In the above context, the establishment of National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) would be the right direction for the country. The NSDI must aim to promote and establish an infrastructure, at the national level for the availability of organized spatial (and non-spatial) data and multi-level information networking to contribute to local, national and global needs of sustained economic growth, environmental quality and stability and social progress.