Survey of India's plan to meet the country's need for digital geographicaldata

Preparation of an accurate topographical map is a painstaking and hazardous task and the technology adopted is quite different to tracing the artefact s from space imageries. Despite space imageries having the advantage of lar ge and repetitive coverage, topographical maps still continue to be used fo r preparation of base maps for thematic representations, research and spati al planning on account of their accuracies, precision and contents. In fact , keeping such requirements in mind the Survey of India has started bringin g out a number of public series maps to promote tourism, explorations, envi ronmental and heritage awareness, etc. Topographical maps on all scales of about two thirds of our land mass and smaller scale maps of the remaining a rea are in public domain, and maps of all categories and associated digital data are being released to the Government organizations on 'need to know' basis. The policies on this issue are generally commensurate with practices in the neighbouring countries. The Survey of India cannot, of course, be b lamed for objecting to copyright violations and digitization of maps withou t consent. The Survey of India, being the producer of topographical maps, has been in the eye of the storm over various restriction policies of the Government fo r some time past. However, the intensity of criticism has increased after t he publication of policies regarding dissemination of digital map data to t he public in November-December 1998 issue of GIS@development. With the issu e being equally important to academics and scientists, a panel on 'Scientif ic Data of Public Interest) was formed at the Indian Academy of Sciences, B angalore and a discussion was organized on 'Public Access to Indian Geograp hical Data' on 14 and 15 July 1999, This paper is a compilation of various issues discussed by the representative of Survey of India regarding the fut ure plans of the Department to meet the country's needs for digital geograp hical data and the existing scenario on map data dissemination. The paper a lso includes some issues related to creation of a digital spatial database in public domain and various policies which will require attention of the G IS community for implementation of the plan.