The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : The map policy redrawn

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 08, 2005

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

The map policy redrawn

It is 30 years since the Indian Space Research Organisation introduced in India the use of images taken by cameras on remote sensing satellites. Since then, government and industry have got familiar with the technology. A whole range of applications has grown around satellite imagery; they range from assessing the extent of the damage caused by the tsunami of December 26, 2004 to helping petroleum companies plan how to lay pipelines. Since satellite images provide spatial information, maps lie at the heart of remote sensing. Unfortunately, the Government's map policy has, in the name of security, tended to look back fondly to a bygone age when inquisitive commercial satellites did not roam overhead. But these are days when high-resolution images of the sort once available to the few countries with spy satellites can be bought over the Internet. India itself recently launched Cartosat-1 whose cameras have a resolution of 2.5 metres. Cartosat-2 with one metre resolution will follow during the current financial year. There are already foreign commercial satellites delivering images with even finer resolution.

The New National Map Policy approved by the Union Cabinet is therefore a step in the right direction. The Survey of India will create and provide detailed Open Series Maps (OSMs) to registered users in digital format that computers can use. Such maps are needed for correcting satellite images and also as a base on which satellite-derived information and other data can be overlaid. Hitherto, only a handful of Central Government agencies were permitted to digitise Survey of India's maps and then only for government use. Steps need to be taken to see that the OSMs are speedily available, and the working of the Map Information Registry Database, which is to monitor the use of the more detailed maps, does not entangled in red tape. Hopefully, the new policy will also mean that the onerous current restrictions on the use of the Survey of India's detailed maps of coastal areas will not apply to the OSMs of those regions. Another progressive measure promised in the new policy is easy access to aerial photographs, which give better resolution than satellite images. However, as with high-resolution satellite data sold within India, what are defined as "Vulnerable Areas/Vulnerable Points" will be masked in the aerial photos. With detailed satellite images readily available from foreign satellites, it might be prudent to realise that masking can have the effect of directing unwelcome curiosity to the very areas the government considers most sensitive. The Union Minister of State for Science & Technology, Kapil Sibal, has estimated the market for spatial data and the economic benefits that will accrue from the use of such data at over Rs. 20,000 crore. Getting to that pot of gold needs a progressive mapping policy, not one that works on the principle of suspicion and hypersensitivity.

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