Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha today addressed a convention of GIS professionals, Government officials, entrepreneurs and young students, organized to mark the World GIS Day, here at the Convention Centre.
Highlighting the significance of the emerging GIS technology to address new challenges and explore new horizon of opportunities, the Lt Governor said the encouragement to spatial thinking, development of new Geographic Information System (GIS) tools, real-world applications are accelerating the growth in business, government and society.
GIS technology ecosystem is offering new communication tools to different sectors and making greater impact in areas like Weather Forecast, Urban & Transport Planning, Security, Biodiversity Protection, Telecom, Agriculture, Environment, Asset Management and Navigation Services, he added.
Speaking on the reforms introduced in the past 8 years to revolutionize the GIS technology across the country, the Lt Governor said, “Under the guidance of Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, GIS has now become the mainstay of development planning and being widely used in the planning and monitoring of development works”.
About 1000 GIS applications every day are being used by professionals, researchers, common citizens in more than 50 sectors to address various challenges and opportunities, he noted.
The Lt Governor also shared the efforts of the government for introducing GIS to address the efficiency of urban & industrial planning, better decision-making for new reforms in agriculture, modernization of land records, road safety, smart city projects, connecting producers & markets, preserving biodiversity and ensuring equity in the society.
GIS is playing a crucial role in the identification of forest boundaries, GI tagging, J&K green drive, conservation of wetlands, and census of water bodies, he added.
Observing that Geographic approach is the only way to integrate all the information available for sectoral growth, the Lt Governor stressed the need to prepare a report on the encroachment of water bodies through comparative analysis of latest and earlier data.
The latest census of 2815 water bodies in J&K by Remote Sensing department can be used for mapping flood risk areas and sharing information with all concerned departments in an integrated manner. With the help of GIS, traffic accidents can be tackled through identification of accident locations, hotspots, the Lt Governor observed.
The Lt Governor advised all the concerned departments to collaborate to use GIS in network design, network optimization and data enhancement in remote areas. GIS can help in better planning of schemes and asset allocation according to the population and their needs, he added.
