India News | DST Launches 3 Applications to Make Purchasing Geospatial Mapping Products Easy

New Delhi, Aug 17 (PTI) The Department of Science and Technology (DST) on Tuesday launched three online applications to enable users to easily purchase and download products related to geospatial mapping online.

The launch of the three applications – Survey of India (SOI) GEO Spatial Data Dissemination Portal, SOI's SARTHI: WEB GIS application, and MANCHITRAN Enterprise Geoportal of National Atlas & Thematic Mapping Organisation (NATMO) – comes after the government unveiled a new geospatial policy in February, erasing all regulations on surveying and mapping.

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"This is a historic moment because it is for the first time the data collected by the government starting from SOI and NATMO becomes freely and easily available to the citizens and organisations in India," DST Secretary Ashutosh Sharma said.

Sharma termed the development a landmark event in the journey of SOI and NATMO, marking the spirit of true democratisation of data.

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Referring to the new geospatial policy, Sharma said by liberalising and democratising geospatial data, a direct impact of about Rs 1 lakh crore will be created by 2030 with a much bigger indirect impact on the economy.

In his Independence Day speech, Prime minister Narendra Modi had spoken about a law that existed even before 1857 under which the citizens of the country did not have the right to create maps.

"If you want to create a map, then seek permission from the government, if you want to print the map in a book, then seek permission from the government; there is a provision for arrest if the map is lost. Nowadays every phone has a map app. Satellites have so much power. Then how will we take the country forward with a burden of such laws?

"It is very important to get rid of this burden of compliances. We have abolished several regulations in various sectors like mapping, space, information technology and BPO," the prime minister said in his Independence Day speech.

With the launch of this online portal, users will no longer have to visit SOI offices, and they can easily purchase and download products online through the Bharat Kosh payment gateway, Naveen Tomar, Surveyor General of India, said.

He pointed out that Sarthi Web GIS will bring Geographical Information System into the hands of the people and save time and resources in data validation with audit trail. This will facilitate SVAMITVA (Survey of villages and mapping with improvised technology in village areas), a new initiative of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj.

Sarthi is a web GIS application which utilises the new advancements in web application development with GIS tools like spatial data visualisation, manipulation, analysis, will be easily accessible to the user with less utilisation of resources at the client's end.

It reduces the need to create custom applications and provides a platform for integrating GIS with other business systems. It enables cross-organisational collaboration in consonance with the new geospatial policy and can be accessed in vernacular languages, he said.

Speaking about MANCHITRAN, Tapati Banerjee, Director NATMO, said that the enterprise geo-portal of NATMO is a giant leap forward in the arena of geo-spatial data sources, and the setting of infrastructure along with the applications was initiated in 2017, and finally it has come online in 2021.

It will open a new dimension of extended services for the citizens of India, and different building blocks of “Manchitran” will serve the requirements of students, researchers, industry, decision-makers, policy makers, administrators, etc.

This geo-portal showcases the huge, authenticated, and valuable data that NATMO acquired during its long 65 years' service. Users can see, download and give feedback about the maps and atlases and different geo-spatial data layers in “MANCHITRAN”.

NATMO has developed this geo-portal mostly with indigenous Made-in-India technologies and with minimum financial involvement and time period, Banerjee added.

In a separate event held on August 16, the Global Geospatial Information Community was sensitised about the second United Nations World Geospatial Information Congress (UNWGIC) to be organised by India in October next year, the DST said.

Their inputs were taken for designing the content of the event at a curtain-raiser.

The curtain raiser event was organised on the margins of the Eleventh Session of the United Nation Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) to be held during the end of August 2021.

"We are excited to host UNWGIC next year and looking forward to welcoming all in Hyderabad next year for the event which would show a glimpse of India's evolving geospatial ecosystem," said DST secretary Sharma while inaugurating the event.

The UN-GGIM organises the UNWGIC every four years with the objectives of enhancing international collaboration among the member states and relevant stakeholders in geospatial information management and capacities.

The first UNWGIC was organised by China in October 2018. The UN-GGIM has entrusted the responsibility of organising the second UNWGIC to India during October 2022. India will organise the event as a part of the "Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav (Celebration of 75 years of Indian Independence)".

Stefan Schweinfest, Director, UN Statistics Division, endorsed the core theme of second UNWGIC 'Geo-enabling the Global Village'. Rosamond Carter Bing, Co-Chair of UN-GGIM, said the theme will help in focusing on the empowering role of geospatial information to common citizens.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)