On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 6:45 PM, Ajay Shah<[email protected]> wrote: > I wrote a column which I intend to publish on the edit page of > Financial Express. The text is ahead. Will be great if you guys could > give me comments. > > > > What should government do? To economists, there is a technical answer: > government should raise money through taxes, and spend it on the > provision of `public goods'. A public good is "non-rival" (i.e. the > use by one person does not preclude the use by another) and > "non-excludable" (it is not possible to prevent an additional person > from benefiting from the public good). > > While there are shades of gray in rivalness and excludability, public > goods are the zone where government involvement in the economy is > legitimate. Protection from war, for example, is a pure public > good. When an army is setup which protects the population, it is > non-rival (the safety of one person imposes no cost on another) and > non-excludable (it is impossible to prevent a newborn child from > benefiting from this safety). > > An important pure public good is map data. Maps are rival: when I am > looking at a map, you can't simultaneously look at the same map. But > map data is a public good. If that data is created once and released > into the public domain, then myriad private players can use it to > create maps, GPS based navigation systems, etc. The job of the > government, then, is to run the Survey of India, which is funded by > taxes, which creates high quality maps data, and releases databases on > the website for free download. > > Unfortunately, in India, we do everything wrong. Survey of India maps > are grossly outdated. On the website, they proudly say: "We know every > inch of the Nation, because we map every inch of it". However, in good > countries, 1:24,000 topo sheets are trustworthy, while Survey of India > does not even have good quality 1:250,000 topo sheets. The weakest > link about Survey of India is the rules of release. Survey of India is > funded by taxpayer money. As a consequence, the information that they > create should be freely released back into the public domain for > unencumbered use. Instead, Survey of India thinks like a > corporation. It has "licensing" restrictions which has effectively > made their data unusable. > > The most important maps in India today are produced by google. Google > maps and google earth are a remarkable combination of satellite > imagery and maps, and they are available for free (!). Google has had > to reconstruct maps of India from scratch, thanks to the legal > problems (and low quality of work) of Survey of India. It is ironic > that even though taxpayers are funding Survey of India, this work is > useless for the people of India, who are flocking to google maps and > google earth. Nokia has also created good maps of India, which are > usable through some Nokia handsets (only). > > The only flaw with google maps and google earth is that the underlying > databases are the private property of google. What would be most > desirable is for maps data to be a public good, which can be used in > all manner of ways by all individuals and companies. As an example, > handheld GPS devices are now available for $100. If these are loaded > with Indian map data, they can be immensely useful tools for > navigation, exploration and business efficiency. Google does not give > out their map database to the public, so such applications are > infeasible. > > Until Survey of India gets its act together, the solution lies with a > public domain initiative named `openstreetmap'. This uses > Internet-scale collaboration to build maps. It involves volunteers, > armed with handheld GPS devices, who are feeding in maps data into a > central database. This database is a true public good. The licensing > conditions of openstreetmap are quite open, though not as open as > those used by the US government. Openstreetmap is doing what Survey of > India should have done: accumulating high quality maps data and > releasing it into the (mostly) public domain. > > Thus, three strategies are now in play in India: a high quality > solution which is a public goods effort (openstreetmap), a good > solution which is owned by a corporation (google) and a poor solution > which acts like a corporation (Survey of India). The users of maps are > flocking to google, Nokia and openstreetmap. > > From the viewpoint of the government, the first best strategy is to > shift Survey of India into the mode of uncompromisingly releasing maps > data into the public domain, matching the release strategy of the US > government on openness. Through this, the government would continue to > engage in taxpayer-funded efforts at creating maps databases, but the > full benefits would come back to the people of India. In addition, > Survey of India needs to get up to timely 1:24000 coverage of the full > country. If these changes are infeasible, it is better to shut down > Survey of India, and transfer its annual budget to openstreetmap, for > the latter is producing public goods while the former is acting like > an inefficient corporation.
Looks good i hope somebody from Govt or Survey of India reads it ;-), Last i checked the Nokia maps were not upto mark for some areas in Noida and Greater Noida , What about NRSA (http://www.nrsa.gov.in/rsgisindex.html) is there data being put to some use by Govt, have a look at Mapmyindia ,Bing and companies like cloudmade.com . OSMers also need to be aware of security risks in India with GPS devices may be we can talk more about it in Mapping party. -Satya satyaakam.net _______________________________________________ Talk-in mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-in
