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Now, a digital map of India
May 20, 2006, 11:45 am |
Now, a digital map of India
New Delhi, May 19: India's official mapping agency today unveiled
guidelines for a national map policy to release for the first time
digital maps of India on a 1:50,000 scale, where 2 cm on a map is 1 km
on the ground.
Although the government had released the national map policy more than
a year ago, it is only after protracted negotiations with the ministry
of defence that the Survey of India has finalised guidelines to
implement it.
The Survey of India has created a topographic database on the 1:50,000
scale for the entire country. Users can now look forward to using
detailed digital maps of all areas, barring Jammu and Kashmir, the
north-eastern states, and military and vital civilian areas. Maps of
these restricted areas would be available only with much lower levels
of details, senior Survey of India officials said.
Digital maps contain terrain information represented in electronic form.
Critics had dubbed India's old map policy as "highly restrictive" as
well as "redundant" because high-resolution images of India captured
by foreign satellites were available to virtually anyone willing to
pay for them.
"We put in place a new map policy last year that reconciles both
concerns of national security and the needs of development," science
and technology minister Kapil Sibal said, releasing the guidelines
that will "operationalise" the new policy.
"Until this new policy, all digital map data had been classified,"
said R. Siva Kumar, head of the national spatial data infrastructure
division in the department of science and technology. "This is
expected to have a big impact on the way we use maps."
"This is a landmark event," said Manoj Jain, sales director in the
geospatial division of a private company. "So far, we've had access
only to paper maps, and the absence of digital maps had been a hurdle
for many activities," he said.
Cellphone service providers could use digital maps to erect relay
towers more efficiently and thus avoid "no reception" zones.
Digital urban maps could also be integrated into vehicle navigation
systems for better route planning. And municipal authorities could use
such maps for a range of activities from urban planning to designing
new water harvesting schemes.
The Survey of India is now creating digital maps of the country on the
1:25,000 scale where 4 cm on the map is 1 km on the ground. "We've
covered 60 per cent of the country and hope to complete this exercise
within two years," said surveyor-general Major General M. Gopal Rao.
A map with even higher level of detail — 10 cm on it equalling 1 km on
the ground — is expected to be ready by 2012, he said.
The new guidelines will take into account concerns expressed by the
ministry of defence on the release of detailed map information to
anyone willing to pay for it, science and technology officials said.
Contour information — data containing information about the altitude
of terrain — for instance, will not be released in maps that cover any
of the sensitive areas.
Contour information is required in planning trajectories of cruise missiles.
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Regards
Vinay
Mob: 9422113939
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Vinay Yadav vinayRas Infotech
www.vinayras.com Nagpur, India
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Linux Consultant & PHP/MySQL Developer
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