Lab's labours get to heart of civic problems

Gurgaon: About 10 engineers and some scientists have been working round the clock on an image of Sohna block zooming in and out on the various components ranging from hutments to the number of streetlights, illegal encroachments and parking spaces.
Based in the newly developed geographical information system (GIS) lab in the heart of the city, the team is a part of Project Udaan.
The project started with Sohna and the imaging has already been finished for the particular block. The project uses drones to capture real-time pictures of an area with a picture quality which is 10 times better than the image quality of Google Earth's. The images are so good that one can even see the anthills in the area in question when one zooms in. The images and data generated by the software have immense utility for the civic authorities.
"Once the base map is in place we will work on developing the applications and the data generated from the imaging can help us in numerous ways," said deputy commissioner T L Satyaprakash. After the applications are developed, there will be a gamut of data available on various fronts such as unauthorized parking spaces, number of houses liable for house tax, encroachments, sewerage lines, power lines, water lines, solid waste management and much more.
The system has already helped unearth irregularities on payment of house tax in the Sohna block. "There are 15,000 houses liable for house tax in the block but only 4,000 are actually paying the tax currently," Dr Sultan Singh, senior scientist at Haryana Space Applications Centre, told TOI. Moreover, sitting in the office the civic agencies and the administration can monitor the illegal encroachments and parking as well. The software is also being used for the zero-outage grid project. Satyaprakash said they also planned to make this data available to the public after it is generated. "What is the use of having so much of information if it is not available for public. By putting this information in the public domain we are trying to set a new standard for good governance," he said.
The system will help in tracking the implementation of several projects such as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan by identifying areas that are clean and the ones that are not. It will also make civic projects more convenient. "For building the roads, the maps and the whole estimate of the project can be worked out online itself," Satyaprakash said. The department just needs to enter the length of the road and it will automatically calculate the cost.
Sultan Singh, however, wants to take the system a step forward by launching a geoportal for the Sohna block which will not just have information in the public domain, but will also take out the human interface from a host of public processes. For instance, once the portal is in place, people will be able to calculate their taxes on their own and file them online. The portal will enable citizens to access information which will help them monitor the authorities' work and at the same time better understand the processes.
"We will also link various processes such as vehicle registration to house tax so if someone goes for registration , he will first have to clear his dues," Singh said. There will also be a background team working with analytics to study public behaviour on the basis of the data generated and find the reasons for non-compliance.