Do you want to locate primary health centres functioning across the State or wish to track an area which is lagging behind in development? All these answers are available with Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology, which has been handling natural resource data management system (NRDMS) since 1992. The council and its district centres have been collecting both spatial and non-spatial data about the State’s socio-economic issues and help formulate effective development programmes.
Mr Hemanth Kumar, fellow of KSCST, said that the collection of data took a new turn with the availability of high resolution satellite images, technologies like Global Positioning System (GPS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) and helped government agencies in implementing its programmes. Should the ZP of a particular district decide to set up new primary health centres, the officials should ask district centres of the council for available data on existing PHCs. The staff at NRDMS then prepare a map ”...that will show details on how many villages do not have PHC or how many people need it, as well as suggest the location for the new PHC”, he said.
The NRDMS centres have prepared hundreds of such maps, including details on chikungunya and AIDS cases, rate of rainfall, drought situation, production of agriculture crops across the state. The primary sources for maps are Survey of India and Land Record and Survey Settlement Department.
Mahiti software developed by Rural Development and Panchayat Raj department and NIC, is one of the major sources of information on socio-economic status of the State.
The government has decided to make digitised information available for the general public by launching a website. Mr Hemanth said the government has released Rs 2.5 crore to set up a server and develop a website, which will be ready by June 2008. It will provide easy access to the public and government officials NRDMS data and maps.