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| Subject: | RE: [gislist] Indian GIS usage (was Raster Image Woes) |
| Date: |
12/15/2003 12:35:01 PM |
| From: |
Dimitri Rotow |
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>
>
> To all the listers concerned with India's GIS potentials, my question is
> why India's share in using GIS for common man is no where near to other
> countries whereas, India have the largest nos: of GIS educated peoples?
I'd question that India is all that different if the assumption that the
"common man" is doing a lot of GIS in other countries.
There are three main obstacles to GIS for the common man:
1. The cost of computing hardware.
2. The cost of GIS software (and, whether or not the GIS software available
is a reasonably easy-to-use Microsoft Windows application).
3. The cost of GIS data.
It does no good to have academic training in GIS if you can't get your hands
on all three of the above. Different countries are in different positions
relative to the above. For example, in the US hardware is cheap and GIS
data is mostly free, but until recently GIS software was too expensive and
too difficult to use. It is only in the last couple of years with the
emergence of high quality, low cost GIS software for Windows that we are
seeing a real explosion of GIS use by "common" people.
In many countries GIS software is free (because of widespread piracy) but
hardware continues to be unaffordable for the common man and GIS data is
hard to get. In Europe, hardware is cheap and so is GIS software (because
they can buy the new generation of high performance, low cost GIS software
for Windows), but data is expensive because it is sold by state cartographic
monopolies like the Ordnance Survey.
I guess the main issue with India would appear to be the general
unavailability of rich GIS data in the public domain, followed by
unaffordability of PCs. In that respect India is a lot like Russia and
China which also have a very highly educated population but which also treat
GIS data as a state secret. Despite recent economic gains, PCs are not as
affordable as people would like in Russia, China or India. GIS software, of
course, is for the most part free for the common man in all three countries
as a result of piracy.
The percentage of "common men" who have PCs in India will rise as a result
of market pressures and continued economic growth (likewise in Russia and
China), but there would appear to be little chance of the Indian (or Chinese
or Russian) government suddenly acquiring the clarity to realize they hurt
the economy more by failing to provide free and easy access to state GIS
data than they gain for national security or deparmental revenue. As long as
someone has to pay the equivalent of thousands of dollars to get basic GIS
data there's no way the "common man" will be doing much GIS in India.
Note that countries like the US which provide free GIS data from their
federal governments have massively more GIS utilization than countries that
don't. Lots of free GIS data encourages the creation of low-cost, high
performance GIS software as well, and it is a tremendous boost to the
overall economy because it puts productivity-enhancing tools in the hands of
many players. The Canadian government realizes this and has recently put a
lot more GIS data on line for free. As a result, many more people in Canada
can use GIS.
One more note: I write above that it's taken for granted in many countries
that GIS software is free for use by common people due to piracy. However,
that's clearly a short term effect that is self-defeating in the long run
because it prevents development of indigenous software. No one in their
right minds will invest a lot of money in the creation of, say, Russian
language GIS software when they know it immediately will appear in pirated
form on thousands of street stands for a few rubles a CD. I would not be
surprised if similar thoughts might discourage would-be GIS entrepreneurs in
India as well.
Cheers,
Dimitri
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