Applications of Geospatial Technology for Good Governance: Institutionalization

Through the geospatial technology, the actual situation on the ground can be accessed. The real life data collected through the technology form the strong foundation for the development of effective social welfare programmes benefiting directly the grass root level people. The geospatial data collected by the space borne sensors along with powerful software support through Geographic Information System (GIS), the vital spatio-temporal maps, tables, and various statistics can be generated which feed into Decision Support System (DSS).

A multi-threaded approach is followed in the process of institutionalization of development of such applications. The five common threads which run through all the processes are: Acceptability, Adoptability, Affordability, Assimilability and Availability.

These are the “Watch Words” which any application development has to meet. The “acceptability” addresses the issue that the application developed has met the wide acceptability among the users departments and the ultimate end beneficiary by way of providing all necessary data and statistics required. The “affordability” addresses the issue of the application product being cost effective. The “availability” aspect looks into aspect of easily accessibility across any platform, anywhere and anytime. The applications should have inbuilt capability of easy “adoptability” to the changing spatio- and temporal resolutions of data, new aspects of requirements arising from time to time from users. The “assimilabity” aspect ensures that the data from various sources / resolutions and technologies can be seamlessly integrated.