The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Salem Corporation signs accord to go hitech

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 03, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Salem Corporation signs accord to go hitech

By R. Ilangovan

SALEM, OCT.2. The Salem Corporation has entered into an agreement with the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) of the Department of Space for utilising the Geographical Information System (GIS) to monitor its asset and utility infrastructure management.

The other beneficiary in Tamil Nadu, which has expressed a willingness to accept the municipal GIS is the Tiruchi Corporation.

The agreement was signed by the Salem Corporation Commissioner, T. Paulsamy, and the General Manager (Aerial Surveys and Digital Mapping), NRSA, Hyderabad, K. Kalyanaraman.

The mapping of every household within a 110-square km area of the Corporation along with its roads, drinking water pipelines, sewerpipelines, streetlights, public and private pipes and underground cables and pipes, would be taken up and the details fed into a special database. The American satellite, IKONOS, is being used for the purpose.

Talking to The Hindu , Mr. Kalyanaraman said the NRSA decided to extend the benefits of digital mapping to municipalities to update their performance parameters. The Salem and Tiruchi Corporations are willing partners in this exercise, which will bring about a sea change in their working module, he said. The inputs collected from these Corporations would be fed into the satellite data mapping of the GIS. The NRSA would extend help to customise the software to make it user-friendly. All vital parameters of these local bodies would be available on the desktops of the Salem and Tiruchi Commissioners, said Mr. Kalyanaraman.

Cost factor

As the cost was prohibitive, the work could not be extended to all local bodies simultaneously.

``As these two Corporations are pro-active to creating special databases, we have decided to assist them,'' he said. Each entry of any individual unit that fell within the Corporation limit could be built into it for a continuous updating of details. ``Even details of illegal water tapping, the exact location of the bursting of pipelines, non-burning of streetlights and the households that evade taxes could be got from this data system.''

Mr. Paulsamy said the agreement would take the Salem Corporation to a high-tech area, where every detail under the satellite could be accessed. ``It will revolutionise the functioning of the Corporation. Even revenue could be increased by 25 per cent.''

M. Manivel, reader and head of the Department of Geology, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchi, would assist the NRSA in collecting the data from these two Corporations.

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