The nation needs a GIS based Decision Support for governance, enterprises and citizens

Why National GIS?

I think this is the right time for a National GIS. There are 2 major reasons why I think so. First, see how as a nation we are tremendously progressing and growing and this will grow manifold in the coming 5-10 years. With such high growth, society will demand very high efficiency in governance and quality services; government will have to depend upon much more efficient and guaranteed methods of nation-building and bringing equity in quality of life and best addressing the vulnerable groups of society with care and touch. All of this will require mush different practices and methods of planning, monitoring and development – which must be equitable, fast, measurable and impacting. What will make impact is sound decision-making based on scientific data and mapping aspirations of society by involving citizens and positioning a modern governance system. This is where GIS as an indispensable tool for planning and development becomes extremely important and most relevant. GIS could easily address the multifarious issues of development and also bring an integrated approach to spatial planning. The Planning Commission has been looking at this for quite some time and this thinking of basing planning and monitoring on GIS has been gaining wider acceptance. This is why the idea started and the concept of National GIS (NGIS) has come into the fore. In fact, even as the basic tenets of the 12th plan are being worked out by the Planning Commission, starting the use of National GIS is a good opportunity right now.

The second aspect is to look at what is happening in the GIS-space in India. Even though the nation has GIS activities for almost 20-30 years, the usage has yet to be impacting and meaningful. An organisational focus is now being discussed for National GIS – which will bring the much-needed thrust to GIS activities with a mandate (responsibility and accountability) for the GIS DSS for governance. Of course, it must be recognised that for the GIS DSS to be positioned, India has to develop a nation-wide dataset which is hitherto un-available in GIS form (though map sheets and images area available – which in-turn have to be processed/mapped to make a GIS database amenable for use). This data asset must also be current and regularly updated – then only the DSS becomes reliable and useful. It is thins thinking that Geographic Information of the country is now being seen as an Asset of the country and this national GIS asset has yet to be organised, developed and maintained.

The need for a nation-wide GIS is coming from the decision makes, planners or the users and that, according to me, is a very significant change because user demand will “drive” rather than the spectrum of data generators, GIS technologists and so on which has been a trend till now. NGIS is thus a focus for a decision support system rather than a technology driven system. I must add here that this shift in focus of GIS is happening across the world and not just in India – but I think India will be the first of the few who are already on way of planning and implementing such a system.

What is the proposed structure of NGIS?

Actually, Planning Commission has discussed the need for a GIS internally some time back and for preparing for the National GIS, it has established a Interim Core Group (ICG) and tasked it to work out a programmatic vision for the National GIS based on a wide consultation amongst government, industry and academia/NGO user community. The ICG is also to help the Planning Commission in the necessary apporoval process. Thus, the ICG has presently initiated the activity of preparing a Vision Document for National GIS – a draft Ver 1.0 has been prepared and is being used for a wide-level of consultation which has already started.

As of now, the ICG has envisioned the National GIS as a “GIS Platform” on which GIS DSS for governance, enterprises and citizen services would be offered based on a standardised seamless, (and regularly updated) nation-wide GIS Asset. Of course, there are associated issues of a very user-centric GIS infrastructure that is being envisioned where user “just consumes the services” and does not have to bother about anything at all. The issues of GIS capacity-building and training with research needs in GIS applications is also being discussed. The major thing that ICG is discussing is that an organisational focus is most essential for National GIS and has outlined the characteristics of such an organisation in INGO.

What are the challenges?

The biggest challenge before all of us is to get the concept behind the NGIS well understood – that now GIS has to be user-driven and whatever users need must be met (if possible) ASAP. It is just not enough to say “this is available” and expect users to “struggle” to use and adopt the GIS. To me that is unfair because the technology of GIS has now a tremendous service focus. GIS must be service-ready and must have a customer-centric focus with service as a motto. As I see it, National GIS is a service offering to the nation’s user community so that users could just get what they want. I think that is the reason that the NGIS is being initiated by Planning Commission – which will define what is needed by the nation, as far as GIS is concerned, and all efforts (by data generators, by technologists etc) must be made to meet those national needs. This is very significant shift and we will have to strongly found this “service focus” and cater to whatever the nation wants.

Of course, many government agencies (and private agencies too) are using and building their own GIS in their own way – but I think the time now is to really “integrate” all these efforts to a national goal of a National GIS, even as each agency works for its own agency-goals (be it providing topographic maps for the country or soil maps for the country or high-resolution images for the country). It must be clear that organising a GIS from all these individual map-sheets and images is an expert and process-oriented activity and moreso if the GIS has to be also updated as the country develops and changes happen. The need to align each of these activities to a common, national GIS will bring tremendous impact and will ensure that the goals of government are met and also bring benefit to industry and citizens.

To me, the most important aspect (again based on experience of past) is the organisational focus that is being outlined in National GIS. GIS as an activity has been there for many years now but the need for an organisational mandated focus is increasingly being felt now – which I think is rightfully being considered now. It is only this mandated organisational focus that will bring responsibility and accountability – if something of GIS does not happen somebody will have to answer and make best efforts to meet the needs. No more GIS can be seen as a project activity (which can have a start and an end) but has to be a continuous and service-oriented activity – thus requiring the responsibility and accountability. This concept has also been seen as quite important in some of the recent things that have happened in the country – be they in infrastructure, social security, Census etc. At the same time, the thinking in ICG is that the organisation focus must be to bring performance and efficiency and thus modern methods of organisational development with clearly defined and measurable performance metrics for the organisation must be implemented. The need is to be as effective and as performance oriented and as successful as possible to make India immensely benefit from GIS and also make India one of the best places for GIS activities.

Would you like to say something on the linkages between NSDI and NGIS?

The NSDI movement started in 2001 and I was closely associated right from then (and thus have a very special attachment to it). I have also been studying the SDI movement across the world and according to me, the Indian NSDI has done pretty well (when compared to others). It has triggered and helped initiate a large amount of GIS activity in the country – many agencies have established good GIS projects. NSDI was driven by data-generators and the emphasis was on “sharing” and making data available – a more cooperative effort. These had challenges just like in many other countries too. NSDI has also made good efforts at standardisation (in Metadata and Exchange and others) and most importantly, through its annual meets, has “kept the flag of SDI flying”. I know that NSDI Secretariat also tried to position some good projects. Thus, NSDI has maintained sufficient momentum for SDI attention in the country and has helped all of us to learn and has given us good experience. So, with the way NSDI was structured, I think it has done pretty well and those are very valuable experience to us.

The ICG has drawn on these and many other experiences and it is clear that National GIS is not “duplicating” any efforts – in fact, National GIS is envisioning to fill the many gaps that still exist for a nation-wide GIS DSS for governance, enterprise and citizens. ICG is also clear that National GIS efforts must not be duplicating the work already done in the country – but should build upon those and achieve the larger goal of a GIS DSS for governance, enterprise and citizens. For example, the excellent standardisation efforts of NNRMS in 2005 and NSDI in 2003/2008 have all been studied and after also considering the much recent experiences and technological developments, the standardisation definitions of National GIS are getting defined. I am sure good linkages will be there. Ultimately, the idea is that the country should benefit from a larger value-proposition of a GIS for its planning, development and governance.

What would be the parameters to measure the success if NGIS?

The Planning Commission and the ICG is very clear on this. ICG feels that any new organisation (like for National GIS) must be performance oriented. The organisation must be agile, slim-and-trim but bring high efficiency and performance for success. A measurable performance matrix metrices are being proposed so that at any time the nation can evaluate and measure the progress and the success of NGIS. The performance metrics is not only going to be a set of analytical parameters for the organisation achievement but also for individual staff achievements so that such methods can also help in improving the quality of the work for future.

What would be the timeframe to move to the next level?

The Planning Commission has given the ICG a duration of 6 months. The Version 1.0 Vision document has already been circulated to all the government agencies, almost 50+ GIS/IT industries and to almost 20+ academia/NGOs as part of the consultation process. We have also taken a campaign to elicit specific feedback and inputs from government user agencies. Other consultations/discussions at higher levels are also happening. Based on all these discussions/consultations, the Ver 2.0 of the Vision document would be prepared and will be taken up for discussion in a proposed National workshop – thus, the National GIS Vision would have all the inputs and materials to be taken up necessary approvals and implementation. The ICG is adopting a very open and inclusive process and maintaining transparency in its activities and will go all ends for getting the best of inputs so that the nation gets the BEST VISION for a National GIS. In fact, all of the ICG members are actively addressing specific aspects of the vision and are bringing in tremendous thinking and inputs for discussion. So even now, we are adopting pretty good work methods – just as we envision INGO to be most modern and efficient organisations. As Member-Secretary, I can assure that anybody who has a good idea and a good way of addressing the DSS GIS, they would certainly be discussed and could find their inputs in the Vision.

Once the Vision is made and submitted to Planning Commission as a national vision, Planning Commission will decide what they want to do with it and take up activities ahead.

Any concluding remarks on NGIS?

We have a task ahead of us and we will do the best as effectively as possible. The ICG is aware that the government is very keen and positive for embedding GIS into the planning and nation-building process and I think opportunity is there to work on it and to make it happen. In all the innovations and societal thrust that government is envisioning in the 12th Plan and beyond, I think National GIS will play an important role.