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BDA dear, where is all the GIS/map data on Bangalore?
Written By silkboard - 8 August, 2010
Bangalore CDP Masterplan governance BDA urban development Complaint Map GIS Others
It is frustrating, as well as shameful. For any thinking, planning, discussions, whether for us citizens, or the government, one basic thing needed in public domain is a map. Not talking a simple map, but something that shows boundaries and jurisdictions of local govenrments, and also its assets (fire stations, water pumping stations, police stations, roads, rails, parks, lakes etc etc). Third parties provide 80% of what you need for free (google, yahoo maps etc), but why is it that in public domain, there are very few maps of Bengaluru carrying official GIS data that we citizens often need for meaningful engagements, complaints etc?
SCE, the company that did the Masterplan-2015 for BDA, mentions the work it did for BDA back in 2005 in this summary document (careful, 2.3 MB pdf). We have all seen the masterplan document (CDP 2015), but where exactly are the other things mentioned there:
- A Digital Urban Spatial Repository (DUSR): ... The DUSR provides the main public stakeholders, up-to-date urban large scale digital map (1: 2000) that is fully GIS enabled.
A full digital geo-referenced large scale map covering 1500 km², 700 tiles, 553 villages, 55,000 parcels, 6.5 lakh buildings, 15,500km of roads, 230 km of railway, 2546 places of worship, 100,691 manholes, 330,903 consumer connections, 4,008 km of water pipelines, 3,245 km of sewage lines, 815 km of drains, 450 km of HT, 90000 parcels of existing land use, 15,000 various landmarks, 400 layouts, totalling over 2 GB of records in 12 geo-databases.
As part of the DUSR, there is supposed to be:
- 10 information kiosks delivering spatial information to the public (routing calculation, localisation of civic amenities but also consultation of the new Digital CDP, along with applicable land regulations). The underlying aim is to keep this kiosk as user-friendly as possible, so that a maximum number of users may benefit from the tool.
- A spatially-enabled web site dedicated to the CDP, allowing the general public to make queries about the new land use and related urban regulations, to browse the various documents and scales (Master Plan, Metropolitan Land Pattern Map) and to process and map basic statistical data (land use cover, population density…).
- A Territorial Data Server allowing BDA and land developers, town planners and investors to access key data concerning the metropolitan region of Bangalore through simple commands.
As a regular citizen who wants to know and "participate", simple questions for BDA:
- Where are the kiosks?
- Where is the website to access this GIS data?
- Where is the data server for us to access all the spatial data?
COMMENTS
silkboard - 8 August, 2010 - 18:16
We have heard from BMTC that the routemap showing all bus stands and routes is actually a property of a company that built it. We see a version of this route map on some BMTC bus stands.
SEC has either built, or is building a GIS database for BWSSB.
We have heard that BBMP has en elaborate map showing all wards and boundaries. I have personally not seen this map if it exists.
Good quality official maps of the city, showing all the public amenities and public assets is a basic tool all well meaning active citizens need to think of things / discuss / participate.
Security may be a concern, for example, BWSSB may not want to make a map showing all its pipelines in the city public. But even then, public versions of all GIS databases should be made public after removing sensitive and personal data (all names and addresses for example, if BBMP has a database of all properties).
vinay_sreenivasa - 8 August, 2010 - 18:25
completely agree. we need a geo-spatial data policy asap where publicly funded gis is made available publicly. Bangalore DC's office paid tonnes to get gis ward maps, but they just refused to share it with me! they didnt even share it with bbmp till much later.
silkboard - 9 August, 2010 - 02:47
I can imagine how often you would be requiring such data for your work. Even for half serious joes like me, can't do any serious thinking and suggesting without the DUSR. BDA must put this data in public domain if it wants meaningful dialougues to take place in public spaces.
Do you know which deptt in BDA is holding this data? If you haven't already, let me write them an RTI application to get access to soft copy of this data. Help me form the questions, I will post it.
I know the 2 possible excuses BDA may have:
- Masterplan is in the courts (2-3 PILs), so can't share data behind it right now
- Security concerns, can't put such data in open
#1 is not valid, public money was spent, public data was produced, putting it out in public doesn't impact legal proceedings.
For #2, create a sensitive "layer" of data, and release DUSR without this sensitive layer.
When the scope of the project itself stated kiosks, GIS website/server as objectives, there is no reason for hiding all data in BDA offices.
vinay_sreenivasa - 9 August, 2010 - 07:27
I ahve filed once and no luck :-). they said , they dont have it. and i didnt follow up. i wanted to drag them to KIC but did not.
lets both file seperately now. you can address it to -
S.S.Topagi,
Town Planning Member, BDA
I think you should ask -
Provide the GIS maps (shape files) for the proposed land use plans which are present in the revised master plan 2015, 2007 (volume 2).
Rithesh - 27 August, 2010 - 03:00
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