Terming Geographical Information System (GIS) as futuristic technology, Siva Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, National Geospatial Data Infrastructure, said geospatial technology could create a few lakh of job openings in the next few decades.
In his keynote address at Geo Summit 2011, the annual convention on geospatial technologies and applications at Sathyabama University, Mr. Kumar said geospatial research at present is focussed more on applications and not on core areas.
Integration of GIS with information technology and communication (ITC) tools on cellular phone-based systems will spread spatial literacy truly reaching out to the masses.
In future, there will be five hundred thousand job opportunities for professionals in GIS-related technologies, he hoped.
Prof. V.S. Ramamurthy, Director, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, said GIS has not truly arrived like that of mobile telephony and for that to happen it has to be made an indispensable part of ITC technology when people would start using the geospatial information even without the knowledge of using it. If introduced in schools, GIS could bring about a change in the perception and cognition capabilities at a young age, he said.
Explaining how geo spatial technology helps governance, Swarna Subba Rao, Surveyor General of India, said work is on to prepare an integrated coastal zone mapping, covering the entire coastline of the country, which will open up a lot of scope for research. A coal mining map is also underway.
To revolutionise governance in urban areas, the Delhi State spatial data has been created to provide information of 33 departments in the State apart from data on underground cables and multi-storied buildings.
The availability of spatial data could take e-governance to the next level, said Mr. Rao, who has two decades of experience in GIS. Besides, 135 cities have been covered in the first phase of national urban information system and many more will be covered in the next phase, he added.
Along with the Department of Space, a few other government departments and private participants, the Survey of India was in the process of preparing a map on 1:10,000 scale which could be very useful for applications in government agencies and industries.
“It will be IT intensive and in digital form providing enormous scope for research and many other innovative methods,” Mr. Rao said.
