On Wednesday 23 December 2009 21:15:19 vinay sreenivasa wrote: > Dear All, > > Bangalore's municipal boundaries were re-drawn 3 years ago and the > number of wards were increased. In order to have maps of all the > new wards, the government has paid a private company (atleast 50 > lakhs, not sure of the correct figure though) to get the maps done. > > Here is a sample of the maps - > http://www.bbmpwards.org/bbmporg/BBMP_Localitysearch.aspx?id=1944&L >ocality=KENCHENAHALLI > > I needed the geographic data of Bangalore(shapefiles) and hence > approached the government for the shapefiles, who in turn asked me > to approach the private company. The representative of the private > company initially said he cannot give me the shapefiles since his > contract with the government was only to provide jpgs! He later > said he'll discuss with the government and get back to me . > > This raises a few questions- > > 1)Isn't 50 lakhs a large sum to just get jpg maps? > > 2)If the contract mentions maps only and doesn't specify jpgs, > shouldn't the government be the owner of the data , that is the > shapefiles? > > 3)Assuming in case the company does hand over the shapefiles to the > government, what will be the policy governing public access to this > data? I'm assuming existing policy framework does not contain > guidelines for geographical/geospatial data. Anyone knows if this > is right or wrong? > > The only geographical data policy we seem to have have > (http://www.dst.gov.in/scientific_services/nationalmappolicy.pdf ) > covers Survey of India and its maps only.
On the contrary the SOI policy seems quite clear about it's motives - profit from public data and public access be damned. "The SOI will issue from time to time detailed guidelines regarding all aspects of the OSMs like procedure for access by user agencies, further dissemination/sharing of OSMs amongst user agencies with or without value additions, ways and means of protecting business and commercial interests of SOI in the data and other incidental matters." "5. MAP DISSEMINATION AND USAGE • Open Series Maps of scales larger than 1:1 million either in analogue or digital formats can be disseminated by SOI by sale or through an agreement to any agency for specific end use. This transaction will be registered in the Registration database with details of the receiving agency, end use etc. • Through the agreement, SOI will allow a user to add value to the maps obtained (either in analogue or digital formats) and prepare his own value-added maps. • The user should be able to share these maps with others – the information of all such sharing will also require to be logged in the Map Transaction Registry." Note: "ways and means of protecting business and commercial interests of SOI" and "Through the agreement, SOI will allow a user to add value to the maps obtained (either in analogue or digital formats) and prepare his own value-added maps." From when did this agency become commercial with the taxpayers money? -- Rgds JTD _______________________________________________ network mailing list [email protected] http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in
