Open source mapping refers to creating free and open geographical data, which promotes broad community participation in a collaborative manner, thus creating critical data resource. So what is the status of open source mapping in India and how much work is left to be done?
Geospatial data is a critical component in policy making, resource planning, surveying and and water bodies, disaster mitigation, and monitoring infrastructure. It is also crucial in defense security, and agriculture operations among other things.
In India, many big ticket government projects such as SVAMITVA, GatiShakti, Smart Cities Mission etc. rely on accurate location and mapping data.
The journey to enable the economic progress of rural households through the flagship SVAMITVA scheme, under the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, is also possible only due to accurate location and mapping data.
With the help of drones, all the lands are being surveyed and mapped to digitally empower rural India. The land data is then processed by Survey of India to generate and update GIS ready Land Parcel Maps, where all information related to the land owner is linked to and made available online.
To make a nation sustainable, its infrastructure plays a significant role, which is why
the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan (NMP) came into existence. Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said,“GatiShakti National Master Plan is going to change the face of India’s infrastructure and its multimodal logistics.”
Under this plan, 1900 GIS data layers of infrastructure mapping from different Ministries and State Governments have been incorporated and made available through the PM GatiShakti NMP platform.
The NMP is a digital platform which contains all the data including mapping details of infrastructure and logistic facilities. The data also includes land records, forest, wildlife, water resources, soil type seismicity, flood map, power transmission and distribution, mining areas, roads, pipelines, sewer lines, eco sensitive zones, Coastal Regulation Zone, etc.
“Geospatial technology is critical to the Digital India Mission as it enables the collection, analysis, and visualization of geographic data, which can help in taking informed decisions and improve the delivery of government services. This directly ties in with the government’s vision of achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” states Sajid Malik, Chairman and Managing Director, Genesys International Corporation.
Apart from that, many businesses, NGOs, researchers, academia and the people’s daily life also rely heavily on geospatial data. There is a growing need for interoperable open map data to strengthen mapping services across the country.
But many questions arise here related to the scope, accuracy and distribution of data.
Is mapping data available for free? How can it be made available for all? How can it be better utilized? Who are the primary users of the available free data? Is the data updated regularly? What is the quality of the available data? How accurate are these free data? Is it easy to use?
Power of Open Source Data
The usage of open map data varies from routing, navigation, and GIS analysis, to planning and delivery of utilities — from sending rescue efforts to a disaster hit area to mitigation efforts. Be it redevelopment, finding natural resources to protecting endangered animal species, mapping is ingrained in the people’s daily lives.
Dr. Manoj Khare, Senior Director, HoD – Emerging Solutions and e-Governance (ES&EG) Group, C-DAC |Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India states, “GIS maps are very important for infrastructure planning and decision making. Open source maps, which are available easily and free of cost, can play a significant role in various applications which are very important for a nation’s development.”
Dr. Khare points out that India can harness the power of open source mapping to drive its development agenda through Collaboration, Data sharing, Standardization and Community engagement.
Constraints
Rapid urbanization has pushed the cities to expand and encroach on the neighboring village areas, thus the boundaries between cities and villages have blurred. Besides, Indian villages have their boundaries marked as per revenue record and the census data was updated last in 2011, which is still being followed.
In many areas, boundaries are so blurry that issues such as crime reporting, employment opportunities, ration distribution etc. arise for people living on the outer border of the village or taluk. Itinerant communities often get neglected their basic amenities in life.
Collecting map data is easy but not enough, it needs to be accurate, updated timely, and rich in quality. This is because the physical form of land areas is prone to changes – the rivers change their course, terrains undergo environmental and sometimes man-made shifts and new infrastructures often replace natural habitats and old structures.
The government of India has a dedicated GIS portal for all the states and UTs but there is no confirmation on how accurate or updated the information is.
Many states and UTs such as Kerala, Gujarat, Odisha, Maharashtra, Jammu, and Kashmir also have their geoportal sites, run by the respective state governments.
I. Prabhu, Joint Director, C-DAC | Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India states, “India has made significant progress in developing open source maps over the past few years. However, there are several challenges that need to be addressed to fully realize the potential of open source maps for the country’s development.”
Some of the existing challenges include data availability, quality, lack of resources, standardization, and intellectual property rights.
Development Data Lab (DDL), a non-profit that produces freely accessible big data resources for policy-makers, researchers and civil society has developed a platform called SHRUG, the Socioeconomic High resolution Rural-Urban Geographic Platform for India.
The maps available in India have limitations. According to DDL, “The maps are stitched together from multiple open source maps, all of which were incomplete and quite confusing. We linked the sources through common location codes, georeferenced when necessary, and geometrically harmonized them.”
The goal of open-sourced map data is to ensure interoperability so that the stakeholders as well as the public can utilize the data for common good
DDL found out that every village map (open or proprietary) that they came across had at least 0-1 Km of measurement error in the representation of their boundary. Besides they found out that a number of locations in India appear to be represented in official data only as points, not as polygons like in the case of forest areas and the northeast region. They validated some boundaries using external sources like satellite imagery.
Way forward
Even though government programs carry out surveys and conduct periodic censuses, it is crowdsourced geospatial data that help fill data gaps at the micro level to provide insights into the progress of any government projection on a near real time basis.
It is also crucial monitor the lives and livelihood of the local communities, whether they are reaping the benefits of the government schemes meant for them, like the healthcare related schemes, pension schemes, land mapping projects and those meant for their economic benefit, employment generation.
In order to analyze how far the work has penetrated into their lives, the local community has to be empowered to use geospatial so that they can geolocate key community assets, vulnerabilities and help decision makers to gauge coverage, gaps and risks at the hyper local level.
“The challenges facing open source maps in India can be overcome by investing in technologies for data collection, providing funding and support to organizations involved in open source mapping, establishing guidelines for data standardization, and establishing a framework for licensing geospatial data,” states Prabhu.
Dr. Khare points out that the way forward for open source maps in India includes key actions like strengthening data infrastructure, ensuring the quality of data, promoting standardization, encouraging private sector participation and developing user friendly applications.
He further emphasizes that the Government of India should focus on collaboration with other countries and international organizations, where best practices can be shared, and adopted. Countries could learn from each other, develop common standards, and promote open source mapping for sustainable development.
One such organization is the UNGGIM, which provides guidelines for generating frameworks to produce and share open source map data. The Government of India and many other countries are adhering to these UNGGIM guidelines to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The goal of open sourced map data is to ensure interoperability so that the stakeholders as well as the public can utilize the data for common good.
This will encourage innovations, services, and meet user needs as well as make the system demand driven rather than supply driven. The availability of open map data will empower developers and map creators to build new compelling applications.
Community Empowerment
Open mapping refers to creating free and open geographical data, which promotes broad community participation collaboratively, thus creating critical data resources. The National Geospatial Policy is expected to give a boost to the dissemination of open source data in the country, driving innovation across verticals and enhancing the utility of spatial data.
Open mapping refers to creating free and open geographical data, which promotes broad community participation collaboratively, thus creating critical data resources
Digital India aims to create a Digital Twin of major cities and towns of the country by 2035, which will only depend on the accurate and real-time updated mapping data. The data will be gathered using the technologies such as sensors, LiDARs, drones, satellites and mobile devices, collected from various sources like buildings, infrastructures, people and automobiles.
Many governmental, private and commercial enterprises depend on software solutions, which are built solely on open sourced map data. These enterprises will ultimately benefit and facilitate the ongoing, self sustainable, Atmanirbhar Bharat mission, which is why making quality data open for all is the only solution at hand.
A common platform where the map data of the entire country is available as well as where users can freely share their issues and grievances, for immediate action may have seemed utopian just a few years ago, is possible today because of actionable geospatial data.
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