E-Paper
IMC to use GIS tool for better governance
ENCROACHERS, MUNICIPAL byelaw offenders and tax dodgers, beware. Big brother will soon be watching you! The Indore Municipal Corporation is moving to map the entire area within municipal limits through Geographical Information System (GIS) - a system of linking information (attributes) to location data, such as people to addresses, buildings to parcels, or streets within a network.
ENCROACHERS, MUNICIPAL byelaw offenders and tax dodgers, beware. Big brother will soon be watching you! The Indore Municipal Corporation is moving to map the entire area within municipal limits through Geographical Information System (GIS) - a system of linking information (attributes) to location data, such as people to addresses, buildings to parcels, or streets within a network.
The year-long contract for preparing a GIS database on a scale of 1:1000 has been awarded to M/s Speck Systems Pvt Ltd. The firm will operate the system for five years before handing it over to the Corporation.
GIS, whose usage is mandated both by JNNURM and ADB, will help the civic body in improving urban governance by providing a collection of computer hardware, software and geographic data for capturing, managing, analysing and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information.
For instance detailed information regarding the location, size, land use and number of structures will help the Corporation nab property tax defaulters. Ditto for lease rent defaulters who will find it difficult to escape the scrutiny of the eye in the sky.
It will also help deter encroachment on parks and designated green belts by furnishing civic body honchos with exact information on every tract of leafy land.
By identifying the locations of drainage and water supply lines the technique will also prevent these being damaged inadvertently during construction, something that happens all too frequently at the moment.
The unified database will also help improve civic efficiency by coordinating inter-departmental activities. A clerk in the Revenue Department, for instance, will be able to tabulate the taxes to be levied on a particular building owner as relevant details like plot size, built up area etc will be made available as soon as permission for the structure is granted.
Similarly, Waterworks Department employees will be able to keep tabs on residents with illegal connections. In certain cases, at least, the GIS will prove to be a lifesaver, literally.
For example the system would save crucial minutes by providing accurate information regarding the width of a particular road to emergency services like firefighters and ambulances, helping save minutes that could prove to be the difference between life and death.
In a statement issued here, the Corporation revealed that a door-to-door survey would be initiated soon to collate the information for preparing the GIS database.
