India: The dream of having a detailed city map at the click of a mouse is all set to be reality. The civic body has already taken the first step towards having its own geographical information survey (GIS) enabled map, along the lines of Google Earth. Work on carrying out a door-to-door survey has already been initiated by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC).
Civic officials said the entire GIS project has been divided into two parts ~ the first part deals with the door-to-door survey while the second works with system development.
Recently, an expression of interest was floated and two agencies, Infotech and Spec Systems, have already been selected for carrying out a door-to-door survey. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will be the third agency, which has been assigned the responsibility of coordination and GIS development.
“A door-to-door survey has already been initiated and a pilot project is being carried out in several wards of the city. The pilot project is expected to be completed by September,” a civic official said. The pilot project is presently been initiated in wards 10, 40, 69, 92 and 128.
In order to ensure that the survey work goes on uninterrupted, the municipal commissioner has already made an appeal to all citizens through newspapers asking people to cooperate with the surveyors who will be visiting each household and gathering necessary information.
The GIS maps will also give detailed information about houses on a particular street and all other related support services like the CESC and BSNL among others. A detailed mapping of underground services will also be carried out. Other details such as length of the road and the number of lampposts located nearby will be mapped through GIS. Even the assessee number, tax due and paid and all other details relating to the assessee will be made available through GIS.
According to civic officials, GIS will not only improve inter-connectivity between various departments of the civic body, details of each department will also be put up on the website.
Moreover, officials of one department will be able to view and access information of another department.
In an earlier attempt, the civic body had tried to prepare GIS enabled maps but had failed to do so after agencies assigned the task of preparing these maps backed out. Later, in 2008, a second expression of interest was floated.
