Global to Local or Local to Global

1
Global to Localor Local to Global?

• Ravi Gupta
• Editor, GIS_at_development

2
Who participates in GSDI?

• Mostly National Level Mapping Agencies
• Survey
• Remote Sensing
• Environment
• Agriculture
• Census
• ..
• ..

3
National Mapping Agencies

• Work at 150,000 or 125,000 scales
• Not necessarily suitable for local government
  needs
• Little institutional linkages between local
  governments and NMAs
• Local Governments may not necessarily see mapping
  as an important need

4
New Institutions needed?

• National Mapping Agency
• State Mapping Agency
• District Mapping (Agency)?
• Block Mapping Officer?
• Village Mapping Officer?

5
Any other way?
6
Get them converted

• Corporatisation of Municipalities
• Ahmedabad, Bangalore
• Urban Planning initiatives
• Delhi, Bangalore, Calcutta
• Utility Management
• NOIDA, Calcutta, Mumbai, Delhi
• Externally aided projects
• Mirzapur, Kanpur
• E-governance projects
• Hyderabad, Karnataka (BHOOMI)
• NGOs
• Mathura

7
Get them converted

• Participatory Resource Mapping
• Kerala
• Orrissa
• Faridabad
• Sindhudurg
• Any many other similar initiatives

8
Interesting trends

• Not directly relying on NMAs
• Public private participation (due to lack of
  staff)
• Not afraid of trying out new ways of doing things
• New funding mechanisms
• New technology

9
Primary / Secondary Data from National Mapping
Agencies
Physical
Procurement
National GIS Programmes
Present Scenario
Central/ State/ District Government
Dissemination / Usability / What next?
10
Primary / Secondary Data from National Mapping
Agencies
Physical
Procurement
National GIS Programmes

Internet
Central/State/ District Government
Local Project
Local Project
Local Project
Local Project
11
Why go local?

• Local level planning may be best done by locals
  themselves
• Need of facilitators to help the community
• To get empowered to develop its own information
  base
• To explore its own solutions
• Long term sustainability of the intervention
  ensured
• The usage of technology may increase manifold
  if the community is involved in the database
  development exercise
• Maps ? Applications ? Usage

12
Local Initiatives

• Isolated efforts
• Islands of excellence (or vice-versa)
• Lack of standard guidelines
• May face problems in future integration with NSDI
• NSDI efforts have to outreach to them

13
Creation of a new community

• Thinking fresh
• Thinking new
• Not afraid to experiment
• Innovative
• Bypass the traditional mindset barriers prevalent
  in the NMAs

14
Way forward

• Let them do it on their own
• No one agency can do all this anyway
• More than 1,000 towns still to be mapped!
• Develop standards and guidelines
• Disseminate them well
• Encourage them to follow these guidelines

15
What does it mean to the NSDI?

• Decentralised system of development of NSDI
• Can be a win-win model
• Will bring a new flavour of new types of people
  getting into the mapping business

16
Local to Global?
17
Thank you

• Ravi Gupta
• Ravi.Gupta_at_GISdevelopment.net
• www.GISdevelopment.net