Morung Express News
Kohima | April 3
With the inauguration of Nagaland Geographic Information System (GIS) by Minister for Planning and Coordination, Dr Shurhozelie Lezietsu, at the APC Cell, New Secretariat Complex today, any information of Nagaland state, ranging from drainage to electoral roll could be a mouse click away. Addl. Chief Secretary and Development Commissioner, Lalthara, said that with today’s formal launch of the GIS unit, Nagaland has become the first state to have developed a GIS based system covering the entire State.
The system is being developed in consultation and technical support, and training from ESRL India Ltd. It was developed using web-based technology for easy accessibility of information or datas via internet, and is hosted through NIC support and can be accessed using internet browser capable of assembling, analyzing, querying and displaying geographically referenced information.
The link to the site is provided through the official website of Nagaland www.nagaland.nic.in, under the name GIS. This is the first phase of project and the second phase is underway, covering more details, said the Development Commissioner. The idea of having GIS and RS Centre under the direct supervision of Development Commissioner under the Planning and Coordination department is to have an integrated GIS and RS platform instead of every department having its own setup, Lalthara said. Progress made so far under GIS establishment are collection and digitization of data of about 1300 villages with an attribute of about 300 fields for all level of planning from grass root level to state level, the information of which is linked to the map.
Data entry and compilation of all layers for different districts has been completed, digitization for all villages, town location, major and minor drainage, rivers roads. However, digitization of contours at the interval of 20 metres in underway, Lalthara said.
The centre, while developing the system, has created 6 different developmental maps and had sold to departments, NGOs, public etc at a nominal rate, so also the centre is taking up projects from different departments and developing GIS based system for the concern departments on payment via treasury challan, which in turn is generating revenue for the government, said Lalthara. The maps available are GIS map of Nagaland, roads map, rivers map, drainage map, administrative map and tourism map of Nagaland. The project was first initiated in 2001-02 by Alemtemshi Jamir, the present APC and the then Development Commissioner.
The launching programme was chaired by Lalthara. Earlier, Chief Secretary Lalhuma and KT Sakhalu, Secretary, Science and Technology, also spoke on the occasion, which was followed by presentation of the website by Minister for Planning and Coordination, Dr Shurhozelie. The vote of thanks was offered by Er. M Kithan.
