The Department of Electronics and Information Technology has called for a meeting with the chief secretaries of all states on February 20 to chalk out a roadmap for adequate use of geographic information system applications, as part of the Centre’s Digital India programme.

GIS is a computerised data management system used to capture, store, analyse and display spatial information.

R S Sharma, Secretary to the Department, said while some states such as Gujarat were using geospatial (data associated with a particular location), other states were lagging behind.

“Even the basic task of using GIS data for creating land records was not done in some of these states,” he said at the inauguration of the three-day India Geospatial Forum meeting here today.

He said for the Digital India programme, it was essential that all geospatial and GIS applications are integrated and offered on a single platform.

The meeting underscored the importance geospatial technologies were playing in today’s world, including on the industrial, agricultural, urban development, transportation and social fronts.

Shailesh Nayak, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Science, wanted the forum to discover new areas that geospatial technologies could be put to use. “One area could be to study impact of climate change, which requires compilation and analysis of large amount of data,” he pointed out.

K Venkataramanan, CEO and Managing Director of Larsen & Toubro, detailed how the company was using geospatial technologies in its operations, including railway and metro projects.

The company has undertaken a project in Mumbai for city surveillance, intelligent traffic management and emergency response system using geospatial technology.

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