: The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has chosen Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam and Krishna districts to be the ‘test sites’ for disease risk mapping and spatial epidemiological models being developed as part of the Geospatial Public Health Data Management System (GPHDMS).
The GPHDMS database is being built on a pilot basis in a total of 32 districts in the country, said Bhoop Singh, Head of National Spatial Data Infrastructure and Natural Resources Data Management System (NRDMS) of DST.
In an exclusive interview to The Hindu on the sidelines of a review meeting on GPHDMS at Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences (NTRUHS) here on Monday, Mr. Bhoop Singh said the DST has tied up with 15 R&D institutions for evolving a network of scientific professionals for gathering data on a variety of diseases and interpreting it to facilitate appropriate interventions that would prevent disease outbreak.
“The disease patterns that will be drawn by scientists help local governments in preparing for contingencies. Equipped with a robust, validated database, they will be in a position to prevent most of the diseases rather than depend on the state governments for action,” he observed.
Mr. Bhoop Singh said methods for disease risk mapping are being worked out by experts in public health, geospatial science and bioinformatics.
“The networking of administrators, technologists, policy-makers and medical doctors will synergize towards a better public health management system”, he asserted. The NSDI would have its own portal in a year.
No water crisis
Citizens, society, private enterprises and governments will be given access to it over a period of time.
Mr. Bhoop Singh said there was no water crisis in India and that the imbalance was due to mismanagement of resources.
This is where the inter-linking of rivers and rain water harvesting structures come into the picture.
“We are among the few countries that took up inter-basin transfer of river waters in the world. Some good beginnings like the Ken-Betwa River linking in Madhya Pradesh have been made,” he pointed out.
Mr. Bhoop Singh said the DST was getting geospatial mapping of Andhra Pradesh done as part of the National Geographical Information System (NGIS) project with the involvement of A.P Remote Sensing Applications Centre in Hyderabad.
The State’s geospatial database would be a component of the NSDI. Geospatial mapping of Kurnool district and has already been completed and work is in progress in other districts, he said.
