Civic body deploys GIS to map Nagpur

The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has embarked on a massive technology-driven exercise aimed at collecting data related to the city through Geographical Information System (GIS).

Bangalore and Hyderabad are known to be the only two cities in the country to have mapped details using an advanced GIS and now Nagpur will become the first city in Maharashtra and the third in the country to do so.

The data will eventually be available to the public through NMC's website www.enmc.org.in . It will help the civic body appreciate what all it has and where it is losing revenue.

For convenience, the civic body has divided the task into two parts: collecting images through satellite and doing field surveys to gather other requisite information.

The two set of data will be used to supplement each other as well as to remove the discrepancies, if any. After this process is over, the data will be uploaded on NMC's website.

The Maharashtra Remote Sensing Application Centre (MRSAC) is using an American satellite fitted with high resolution cameras for obtaining detailed satellite images.

Field work is being done by M/s ADCC Infotech Private Limited and M/s Speck System Limited (Hyderabad). The city has been divided into two zones for the purpose of field survey and each company is in-charge of one zone. NMC is paying Rs 1.5 crore to the companies.

Tax assessor Hemant Sahastrabudhe said that the companies have started the work in 30 wards of the city. The data collection of all the wards will be completed next year.

He said that using GIS data is being collected on roads, bus shelters, cross drainage, storm water drains, sewer lines, manholes, footpaths, hawker zones, markets, road dividers (median), NMC hoarding sites, parking sites, toilets and urinals, public taps, property (revenue), street lights, traffic islands, transit points, trees, water pipelines, etc.

Municipal commissioner Lokesh Chandra is confident that GIS will ensure complete transparency in development works.

Duplication in the developmental works will be prevented once this system is in place and help NMC in keeping track of new properties and renovation of existing ones. Once GIS database is available, officials will know when a road is constructed and tarred. This is not possible now.

The GIS database will also increase NMC's property tax collection as it will immediately come to know when a new property comes into existence. Presently, it takes some time before new properties are brought under tax net.

Each and every detail of the property will be available with NMC including zone number, city survey number, plot number, khasra number, mouza number, floor, floor type, owner, occupant's name and address, building number, type of building, telephone number, water meter number, index number, location, occupancy factor, age factor, date of construction and cost of construction, etc.