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Adopting GIS

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DQI Bureau
New Update

Growth in the use of spatial technologies has secured acceptance

for geospatial technology as an effective decision-making tool even by

government agencies. They have realized that this technology can provide them

the much-needed tool to address the ever-increasing demand for data

availability. The technology, today, is widely used in integrated land

information systems, land reform offices, education sector, and urban planning.

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According to a recent study conducted by Geospatial Today in

association with Antrix Corporation and Survey of India in May 2006, the

Geographical Information System (GIS) market (domestic and export) is expected

to record a potential growth from Rs 962 crore ($209 mn) in the year 2005 to Rs

2,820.30 crore ($613 mn) by 2010 at a CAGR of 14.5%.

The study, which focused on different parts of the geospatial

industry including geospatial data, services (including remote sensing),

products and export of geospatial services from India, estimates that the

domestic market for these services amounts to about Rs 562 crore ($122 mn) in

fiscal 2005, and is expected to reach Rs 1,824.3 crore ($396 mn) by 2010, at a

CAGR of 17.6% per annum. The key driver for this increased growth is the

expected investments in land information systems (ILIS) in several states across

the country.

The

extensive use of GIS is palpable in various fields like laying pipelines,

building roads, and laying transmission grids
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Though the awareness of GIS-based applications is in its initial

phases, due to extensive research and education many government/semi-government

agencies and corporate organizations have recognized that this technology can

provide them the much-needed tool to address the increasing demand for data

availability through a highly visually intuitive decision making tool that gives

you a panoramic view instead of a myopic view. The basic premise is to leverage

spatial data for increased productivity.

In India, the central and state governments are major users of

geospatial applications since most of the basic infrastructure is owned and

managed by them. The extensive use of GIS is palpable in various fields like

laying pipelines, building roads, laying transmission grids etc.

Several large private sector organizations have also started

extensive usage of GIS in utility mapping and asset management, retail and

logistics management, pipelines and refineries, integration with CRM,

location-based services, and agriculture produce management.

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Today, the government of India and almost all state governments

are convinced of the fact that to retain the over all economic growth of the

country and have a continuous FDI inflow as well, substantial investment on

infrastructure is very much needed. Besides this, most of the mega

infrastructure projects have already started rolling, and are making reasonably

good progress. Some of the best examples of such projects are Rajiv Gandhi

Drinking Water Mission, National Highways Development Project (East-West and

North-South Corridors, Golden Quadrilateral, etc), Water Resources (Major

Irrigation, Interlinking of rivers, interstate water dispute resolution), Yamuna

Action Plan, Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, National Urban

Information System, National Hydrology Project, National Agricultural Technology

Project, and the APDRP Power Reforms projects.

Also, to sustain the current economic growth, India would

require a large number of new projects to provide the required infrastructure.

The heartening news is that most of the existing projects are reasonably on

schedule in spite of several initial hiccups, and some have been successfully

completed too.

Having said that, there are several major challenges that the

industry still faces:

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  • GIS and Remote sensing application software require high-end

    computers with high end-graphics cards which, at the moment, are

    comparatively expensive in India. But this problem will cease to persist

    gradually as prices of hardware keep going down.

  • GIS Awareness and education levels are still low in India.

    It has yet to proliferate fully in the formal technical education space

    (graduate degree programs, and diplomas), even though many universities

    and colleges have started teaching GIS in PG programs.

  • The last but the biggest constraint is the easy availability

    of spatial data. In India, most of the organizations that have adopted GIS

    are still spending a lot of money and time on building data. One of the

    reasons attributable to this is the disparity between the various systems

    from which data has to move from one form to another before the final

    desired output is available. The second reason is very tight government

    control on spatial data acquisition and high cost of satellite and aerial

    data.

The prospect of geospatial as a market is huge looking at the

investment that is going in to the infrastructure industry. Also, the adoption

of GIS applications is gaining very high popularity and mindshare in most of the

core infrastructure development areas like roads and highways, hydrology,

hydro-power, bridges, land development and earthwork, grading, site planning,

and power distribution.

Manideep Saha, head,

Infrastructure Solutions, India & SAARC Region




maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in

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