Karnataka government has set up a task force for outlining a policy on geo-spatial governance to achieve goals of coordinated planning, effective governance and public welfare.

"We have set up a task force for shaping a policy on geo-spatial governance, which will bring in transparency and accountability in governance. There will be no cases of cheating and bluffing in any deals including property," IT Secretary M Vidyashankar told reporters here on the sidelines of eleventh annual conference of the national spatial data infrastructure (NSDI-11).

The geo-spatial policy is expected to provide a strong base for planning and executing various development projects and utility services, he said.

Various departments, corporations, boards, local bodies, public authorities and public and private agencies will have access to the geo-spatial data and applications while implementing developmental works, Vidyashankar said.

Two senior scientists and former employees of ISRO are the members of the task force, Vidyashankar said.

Vidyashankar said the task of drafting policy on mobile-governance would be completed shortly. "We want to complete the drafting work in a month's time," he said. PTI BDN RC DEP

Project for creating topographic database on 1:10,000 scale

The Survey of India (SOI) has embarked upon a project for creating a national topographic database on a 1:10,000 scale for the entire country and aims to complete it during the 12th plan period, Surveyor General of India S Subba Rao said here today.

"No doubt it is a gigantic task, but SOI is confident of completing it in three years," Rao told reporters on the sidelines of the 11th annual conference of the national spatial data infrastructure (NSDI-11).

The plan would provide opportunities for state governments to renovate their cadastral maps and improve their accuracy, Rao said.

"The project is billed as the largest surveying and mapping operation in the world. We have started a pilot project in Andhra Pradesh and it would be expanded across the country progressively," he said.

At present, SOI is providing 1:50,000 scale topographical map available on India Geo-portal, Rao said.

In addition to topographic data, SOI is also planning to provide minimum attribution information, which should enable various GIS-based applications, he said.

He said National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) has begun rolling out SDIs at the state level as central scheme during the 12th plan with an overall outlay of Rs 750 crore.

"Karnataka is a leader in these technologies having established the first SDI and State Geoportal in the country, besides having geo-spatial data centres in all the districts.

I am sure, other States will emulate this," Rao said.

Stressing the need for state governments to derive full advantage of the Web, he said every State and Union Territory should create SDI to enable SOI move spatial data into Web information and Web services from network of distributed Geo-portals. This will be immensely useful in local planning initiatives across the state.

"The data held by State governments in the form of maps, charts and tables when combined with the national data will be able to provide any kind of solution based on geospatial data, Rao said.