INTRODUCTION :-
It has always been a matter of great happiness for me to
be at Calcutta
- a historic city which had combined intellect, action and culture. It
had provided the leadership in most walks of life. Many great men and
women, some even from abroad, have been attracted to this city. It is an honour to be at the International Congress of the
Indian National Cartography Association (INCA) especially to deliver the
fifth Todar Mal lecture after the four eminent
persons who have delivered the earlier lectures of this series, all of
whom I know well and I was fortunate to be associated with, during my
career.
My long association with the Indian Space programme promoting applications of remote sensing
and earth observation brought me in close touch with many persons who
have contributed tremendously to surveying and its manifold applications
in the country. The remarkable pace with which the country has used
modern technologies in surveying and natural resource management over the
last three decades is indeed a tribute to them. A number of them are
present here. INCA has rightly remembered Todar
Mal, one of the great administrators in India by Akbar's
time since he was the one who introduced systematic and regular land
survey system for preparation of revenue maps. His system continued to be
in practice upto mid-eighteen century.
I wish to cover in my lecture briefly a few aspects; the
close link between the surveys and the socio-economic activities and upon
the emerging scenario for a developed India. In its march towards
the developed status and later to sustain a knowledge-based economy, the
country will place considerable demands of survey systems, survey related
technologies and allied applications. In the period of history when
Information Technology (IT) is growing at a mind boggling pace, the
survey and cartographic techniques naturally enter all walks of life.
Thus the theme "Cartography in Action" is very timely. I hope
to share a few thoughts with you about what cartography can do for the
economic growth of the country and well being of its billion plus people
thus making the Vision of a Developed India real.
ECONOMIC POWER SHIFT
From ancient times almost till the Industrial revolution
the economic and therefore, the political power base predominantly rested
with those who possessed LAND and LABOUR. Arthasastra
had a classification of the relative importance of land. In decreasing
importance it was cart shed, storage shed, threshing floor, vegetable
garden, irrigation land, dry cultivation and pasture. Also land was
classified according to rainfall. As noted before in Akbar's
time a systematic and scientific system of land survey was instituted.
During the British rule the earliest scientific organisations
set up were Survey of India, Geological Survey of India and India
Meteorological Department. It can be seen that surveying was closely
linked to the maintenance of economic power and therefore the political
power. Since the early part of this century, the economic power has
shifted to Land-Labour to Capital-Technology.
This power shift is due to rapid growth of technologies and their massive
and large scale applications to human life. The quality of human life has
improved all over the globe. Many dreaded epidemics are things of past in
most parts of the world including India. Such a rapid growth
and the "space time" shrinkage of the world is leading the
forces of globalisation felt in most countries,
in terms of economy, technology, culture etc. In such a world the
dominant paradigms of economic power are CAPITAL and TECHNOLOGY. Has
surveying and cartography lost its relevance in such a world? On the
contrary, the rapid economic growth and increasing demands of better
quality of people are placing newer and unprecedented demands not only
for newer and better yielding systems of agriculture but more
infrastructure for transport, better habitats, avenues for tourism,
sustainable management of natural resources and human, wide resources
like electric power, advanced materials etc. There are requirements of
exploring newer "spaces" like oceans, space etc. Surveying and
cartographic techniques armed with modern IT technologies open up new
dimensions for all these economic, social and cultural demands.
In addition the technological growth is leading to
knowledge-based societies, opening up of Virtual Spaces for aiding human
memory, thinking, conceptualisation and
creativity. These virtual spaces naturally require many applications of
cartography in newer forms, since management of spatial systems is the
essence of cartography.
Thus the emerging situations have exciting possibilities
for the development and applications of cartographic techniques in India and
in the world. I will attempt to give a few glimpses of this
opportunities for India.
Let us look at India's
growth towards a developed country.
INDIA AS A DEVELOPED COUNTRY BY 2020
Based on a number of detailed studies by about 500 experts
in 17 panel/Task Forces and with inputs from about 5000 experts all over
the country from academic, laboratories, government, and industries,
Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC)
brought out a series of reports entitled Technology Vision for India
upto 2020. The 25 volume set was presented to
the nation by the Prime Minister on August 2, 1996. Based on these
reports as well as other sources, Dr. Abdul Kalam
and myself have recently written a book "India 2020 : A Vision for a
New Millennium" published by Viking Penguin India. We have brought
out in that book, how a developed India would be like and that
such a status can be achieved by the year 2020. It shows how Indian
economy could improve its position in comparison with other countries and
refers to the elements of technologically-strong India,
which would grow out of its developing country status to a Developed
Country.
It will be difficult to address all the elements even in
a rudimentary manner. Hence a few examples are given.
DEMANDS FOR FOOD AND AGRICULTURE
With a one billion plus population, and the consumption
styles changing with the economic growth of 7 per cent to 8 per cent per
year, the requirement of food grains by the year 2020, including marginal
exports, would be 360 million tones. Similarly there will be a increasing demands for milk, meat poultry, fruits
and vegetables too. Most of these production levels have to be achieved
in lesser and lesser land area because productivity is important for
better yield and also for the better income for farmers and farm workers.
In addition, various environmental protection and natural resources
conservation measures would be required for a sustainable agriculture.
The complexity of agricultural management will be much greater than the
days of Green Revolution. Cultivation of Rice and Wheat has to be
expanded to many parts of eastern India. Newer techniques
including green house cultivations have to be introduced. In a nutshell,
the agriculture will move away from the mere consideration of Seed and
Fertilizer to System Management. This will require over a period large
scale applications of Geographic Information Systems. Since global trade
in agricultural products will be driven by market forces in a regime of
global trade under the aegis of World Trade Organisation
(WTO), rapid and systematic monitoring of performance of agriculture by
other countries and India
through Space based remote sensing will also be required to derive
maximum benefits for the country.
Regular surveys of water resources, their availability
and purity levels, weather systems etc. would be required not merely to
supply information to the government officials but in a way that would be
accessible to the public in many forms.
Agricultural prosperity would also lead to several
agro-food industries which begin with several scientifically planned
storage systems, cold chains and fast moving transport systems (by land,
waterways and air). Multi modal transport of many of these products to
the destination in India
and many foreign countries would be a daily occurrence. These
requirements would place a large demand of not only static information
about the roadways, railways etc. but also dynamic information about the
position of goods. There could be companies regularly monitoring the
daily status of cold chains and planning alternate routes of transport in
case of problems. These demand real time access of locations in the
existing spatial system-ability to work out alternate spatial routes in
near-real time and imagine demands of geographic information systems and
user friendly services resulting from them. These challenges for
cartography will come in about five years in our country. If we do not
raise upto these demands, foreign companies
would be meeting these demands in the country, as the rapid growth in the
agriculture and agro-processing sector is crucial to the vitality of
Indian economy.
OTHER AREAS
Requirements of spatial information is equally vital for
building roads; laying new power lines, or in understanding and
sustainable use of the great wealth of biodiversity which India
is blessed with.
Let us look at another crucial need: human health. The
march towards Vision 2020 of health for all requires several actions. In
the near term, as long the communicable diseases TB, AIDS, diarrheas and
vector borne diseases would dominate. In tackling most of these diseases,
in addition to extension of medical service, a lot of work has to be done
to increase sanitation and nutritional availability. In addition to
several other actions required, spatially depicted information would
greatly help planning and monitoring. National Atlas and Thematic Mapping
Organisation (NATMO) has
made an excellent beginning through its series on Health Maps and
Environmental Pollution maps. Much more extended and continuous updates
are required including their availability in electronic form. This will
be an area of Cartography in Action especially with a human face.
Coming to another sector, natural external and internal security,
the demands on modern cartography and real time GIS systems would
increase many fold in the coming years. A developed country would need to
keep a constant vigil to protect its people and the nation.
Trends in Map requirement for cities and towns during
1951-2001, Trends in Railway Mapping requirement during 1951-2001, Trends
in Mapping requirement for National Highway Survey during 1970-71 to 2001
and Trends in Mapping requirement for Foreign Tourists during 1971-2001
can be analysed. The projections even during
the next three years could change drastically as the infrastructure is
being expanded to a very large extent. Let us note the Prime Minister's
announcement of a special road system from Kanyakumari
to Kashmir.
Another important point to be noted about these figures
is that it depicts the demands for conventional maps printed in paper. If
one considers value-added products and thematic maps the picture will be
totally different. I have learnt from many telecom and power company
executives that once they get in principle approval for the projects they
engage persons to create large scale maps for their projects. These are
done by optoelectronic scanning of existing maps, use of remote sensing
data and creating a few primary data. We have recently started a cost
benefit study about remote sensing funded by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Preliminary inputs indicate that
the private sector demand for satellite products is rapidly increasing. Sale of digital
products are on the rise. There are many private
entrepreneurs providing remote sensing and GIS based information
services. I had recently attended a seminar on floor damage assessment in
which a person from the Central Water Commission made a presentation
about the use of remote sensing data and GIS techniques not only to
assess flooded area but also to do historic trend analysis for nearly a
century.
Disaster management system required in coastal regions or
flood prone areas, in a fast growing economy would require a large number
of large scale maps to plan preventive steps, to warn in advance and to
estimate damages objectively.
Thus during this entire lecture, I use the word
Cartography and its applications in a much broader sense of use of all
spatial information and also various forms in which it is generated,
modified, stored and applied.
Among the several technologies required for modern
surveying and GIS systems, one of the most important one is remote
sensing. Fortunately India
has built up integrated strengths in this area from satellites to local
applications. Let us have a brief look at the existing, world remote
sensing systems and those under planning. An article named
"Expanding global access to civilian and commercial remote sensing data : implications and policy issues" by George
J. John C. Barker and Kevin M. O'Connell appearing in Space Policy,
Volume 14, Number 3, August 1998 states "In the late 1980's, India
inaugurated one of the most competitive systems to come on line with its
Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite series. India's long term strategy is
to build a national remote sensing capability for socio-economic
development and ecological monitoring".
It further states, "Increasingly, any state, organisation, or individual can purchase
high-resolution commercial imagery through private/commercial
distributors and national, civil satellite organisations.
In addition, France, Canada, Israel,
Japan and India are
expected to be operating high-resolution remote sensing systems with both
high-resolution (1-5 m) and rapid revist time
(1-2 days) over the next decade". We should note that other
countries are also increasing their presence with higher resolution
satellites and more features. Availability of these data increase the cartographic applications several fold.
NEW SERVICES
Cartographic specialists and professionals would
naturally be very much concerned with the accuracies and connectivity to
the geoid. Since concerns are important and
further developments would continue to take place. However given this
fast moving period of human history, there are many other applications as
well which do not demand the degree of accuracies or connectivity to the geoid. There are applications where local distances
and their relative positioning are far more important than the
connectivity to the grid: for example the detailed street and building
maps of a locality or a large scale map required in laying power lines in
a local area or a contour mapping for a golf course. Those who are in the
profession of surveying, cartography, and thematic contour mapping have
to be alive to these growing needs. Many of these data may be used in
advertising or as an aid for preliminary planning.
I have seen youngsters planning their trips to USA sitting in India by using Internet. They
get on the screen the map of the area near their friend's houses and type
in the friend's address. They get the indication of the locations of the
houses. Not only that, they can feed in the airport name to the computer
and get the optimum route to travel indicated on the computer screen with
approximate indication of the road distance to be covered. Compare these
services with the difficulties which an Indian is put to when he or she
has to travel to a city.
Look at an area which attracts millions of Indian and
thousands of Indians: Varanasi. One has to catch
hold of books on Varanasi to get the map,
read the book and the map. There are so many ghats
and temples each of them packed with history, beliefs and customs. User
friendly GIS packages about these can be an excellent commercial
proposition. Given the availability of modern digital cameras from a boat
plying on River Ganga one can catch the
magnificent temples and the contours of the ghats,
manipulate the information electronically to generate many useful
packages.
Such
packages can be generated for many thousands of towns, villages and
location of India,
which are rich with history, traditions and unique culture.
There are a number of positive developments to report. I
will only mention a study, I am aware of. "In view of the modern
cartographic technology and demand for large scale maps of smaller areas
by the commercial sector due to the changing economic scenario associated
with liberalisation, the Government of India
under the aegies of TIFAC, Department of
Science and Technology has constituted a Special Core group (SCG) for
dealing with Government-Industry co-operation in Cartography" to
cope with the increasing demand of cartographic products such as digitised maps, scanned maps and GIS/LIS solutions.
NATMO and Dr. P. Nag have played a key role in the study. SCG has found
that there is an immense scope of Government-Industry Cooperation in the
field of cartography. The Government organisations
like All India Radio and Doordarshan, Ministry
of Tourism, Telecommunications, Irrigation and Power, Agriculture and
Corporation, Rural Areas and Employment, Urban Areas and Employment and
Health etc., are very much interested to get maps required by them in digitised form. New Delhi Municipal Corporation wants
all its service and Master Plan to be digitised.
NATMO has digitised all the old Smart Maps of
Calcutta Municipal Corporation in collaboration with a private IT
industry, IDS. Other Metro Cities are also very much willing to get their
ward or municipal maps in digitised form to
preserve the data, to check malpractice in their tax/revenue collection
and to dispose the cases swiftly and efficiently. I am aware of several
other examples as well. That gives me the confidence to say what I am
attempting in this lecture.
EXPORT OF SERVICES
The business potentials from "Cartography in
Action" need not be restricted to actions within India. Indian surveyors have
conducted a number of surveys in other countries as well. IRS data export
is another major achievement. Let us look at the Indian Ocean Rim
countries. Imagine the requirements of coastal mapping and ocean studies
around the rim countires. Given the high
resolution of the contemporary and emerging route sensing satellite
systems, about which we have seen before, opportunities are many.
Economic benefits and geopolitical goodwill can result from early actions
by Indian groups.
KNOWLEDGE BASED
SOCIETY
That brings us to the last few points,
I would like to share with you. The rapid pace of the modern day world
has been due to the shift towards high technology intensity in every walk
to human life. We have seen how it will affect agriculture, health
services, not to mention other sectors. We also see in the anvil large
scale emergence of new IT based services which will mean thinking in
terms of and in the Virtual Space. Also doing business in the world now
being described as "thinking globally and acting local". In the
mapping language it means we need a small-scale overview of the system
and a very large scale detailed work to plan specific activity. Thus the
knowledge base acquired is extensive as well as intensive. That is why
many analysts are describing the situation as a move towards knowledge
intensive or knowledge drive society. Around the time when printing of
books was invented and applied around 1450 A.D. the growth rate was
doubling of knowledge base every 300 years. By the turn of the century it
will be doubling every 72 days. This pace has serious implications. The way in which we organise
ourselves, learn, seek or share knowledge will change. Indian cartography
having had a long tradition has also to see the changing paradigms.
Future belongs to those who master the three perspectives. There is a
need to constantly acquire, upgrade and possess technological
superiority; having a continual organisational
thinking and provide imaginative personal leadership. All those in India
who handle cartography, thematic mapping, surveying and allied services
would need to be deeply aware of the emerging needs of the knowledge
based society to which Indian will also transform itself in its march
towards a developed country. In fact the imaginative applications of
technology and knowledge based society to which India
also will transform itself in its march towards a developed country. In
fact the imaginative applications of technology and knowledge intensity
to all walks of life, would help India to
reach a developed country status sooner. "Cartography in
Action" as briefly described in this talk has a major role to play.
Much would depend upon how we master the three perspectives for speedy
and sustained actions. I am personally confident that we all can, if we
will and take speedy actions in a sustained manner.
Thank you.
