Tuesday, November 20. 2007

Challenges to Geospatial Technology in India

Manideep Saha writing in CXOToday highlights the three big problems, some of which we've been through (and are still going through) in the rest of the world.

1. GIS and remote sensing application software require high end computers with high end graphics cards etc, which at the moment are comparatively expensive in India. But this problem will cease to persist gradually as prices of hardware keep going down.

2. GIS awareness and education levels are still low in India. It has yet to proliferate fully in the formal technical education space (graduate degree programs, diploma's, etc), even though many universities and colleges have started teaching GIS in PG programs.

3. The last but the biggest constraint is the easy availability of spatial data. In India, most of the organizations that have adopted GIS are still spending a lot of money and time on building data. One of the reasons attributable to this is the disparity between the various systems from which the data has to move from one form to another before the final desired output is available. The second reason is very tight government control on spatial data acquisition and high cost of satellite and aerial data.

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I don't think we can consider cost of computer h/w, s/w or lack of trainined resources are the main challenges for the adoption of GI technology in India. In fact, most of the GIS around world is done form India - not just data captur, but also developing GI applications. The main challenges facing India in the adoption of GI technology are:

1. Lack of political will - It is not a vot winner, hence
2. Lack of investment in spatial data (although this tendency is slowly chaning)
3. Lack of infrastructure - you can capture if a feature exists! In many areas roads have no names or they are not marked!

#1 Siva on 2007-11-21 02:46 (Reply)

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In reply to	[ Top level ]#1: Siva on 2007-11-21 02:46
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