The Maharashtra government is finally climbing the technology curve. It has decided to use geographical information systems (GIS) and other spatial technologies for urban planning. The new plan for redevelopment of very old buildings would be created using Google Earth and Maps.

The Chief Minster, Mr Prithviraj Chavan, has asked the Urban Development Department to extensively use these technologies while creating the master plan for redevelopment. An exhaustive database of these buildings with exact location will be created using mapping software and then loaded on Google Earth for public scrutiny.

In island city area of Mumbai, there are about 16,000 old dilapidated buildings built before 1960. The oldest have been built around 1920. They urgently need to be redeveloped in a planned manner.

A senior official in the Chief Minister's office said that once a complete database of these buildings with the owners' names, number of tenants, area occupied by each tenant and details of taxes is made available online, redevelopers would be more keen to develop it. Today not much information, especially regarding ownership is available, the official said.

“Once we have the information, then policy decisions regarding floor space index for redevelopment could be taken,” the official said.

Commenting on the issue, Mr Jocelyn Vigreux, Senior Vice-President with TomTom India, a well-known manufacturer of navigation systems said that GIS has multiple application, which governments can use for urban planning, infrastructure developments. Anything from power lines to traffic lights management could be designed better with GIS, he said.

He said that in bygone era maps were treated national treasure. Today we need to given equal respect to these digital maps and utilised it properly, he said.

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