GIS conclave spots great potential in India

NEW DELHI: The eighth annual user conference of ESRI, a provider of Geographic Information Systems-based solutions, got underway in New Delhi yesterday. Delegates weighed ways and means of stepping up usage of GIS in India.

Kicking off the two-day event, National Informatics Centre director general N Vijayaditya said, “The government is increasingly leveraging GIS technology to pursue its objectives of eGovernance by making essential information available to citizens.”

“The government is also looking at adopting GIS to enable micro-level planning to ensure speedy economic development,” he added.

Speakers touched upon a variety of issues, from GIS use in governance, trends in satellite imagery, tapping the vast offshoring potential in GIS application development and services, to new GIS technology directions that have the potential of changing the economic and informational landscape of India.

Professionals from ESRI Inc and ESRI India held technical workshops. Highlighting the immense potential of 'GIS Outsourcing', Arvind
Thakur, CEO, NIIT Technologies, said India's GIS market currently valued at $80 million remained only a fraction of the total $7 billion GIS market worldwide.

The conference provided a platform for participants to share experiences of GIS deployment in areas ranging from town planning to managing forest resources and estimating crop production using remote sensing techniques.

Participants in the exhibition included British Aerospace, HP India and Microsoft among others. Government agencies included National Informatics Centre, Survey of India and National Remote Sensing Agency amongst others.