Mapping experiments in an Unsurveyed land - An #OpenGeoData Initiative for Rights to information at Koorachundu Village Panchayat

Mapping experiments in anUnsurveyed land -

An #OpenGeoData Initiative forRights to information at

Koorachundu Village Panchayat.

- Jaisen Nedumpala(Assistant Secretary, Koorachundu Village Panchayat;

Member of Executive Committee, Swathanthra Malayalam Computing; Member, Wikimedia India Chapter)

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DEEPENING DEMOCRACY ( ICODD 2015)

Village Panchayat – Location


Village Panchayat – Features


Village Panchayat Profile Kozhikode Dist. - Balussery Block.

87.98 KM 2s.

Wards 13 nos.

Assembly Constituency : Balussery

Parliament Constituency: Kozhikode

Most of the areas remain unsurveyed.

Revenue Villages - Koorachundu, Chakkittapara, Kayanna (Koyilandy Taluk) and Kanthalad (Thamarassery Taluk).

Forest - Pervannamuzhi Range, Malabar WLS. KSEB - Kuttiyadi Hydroelectric Project (Kakkayam Dam and

reservoir) . Irrigation – Kuttiyadi Irrigation Project – Peruvannamuzhi

Reservoir .


Integral Institutions

1 Krishi Bhavan – Koorachundu

2 Veterinary Dispensary

– Koorachundu

3 Veterinary Sub Centre

– Kariyathumpara

4 Primary Heath Centre - Kakkayam

5 Family Welfare Centre - Mandoppara

6 Family Welfare Centre - Keloth vayal

7 Family Welfare Centre - Kallanode

8 Family Welfare Centre

– Kattulla mala

9 Ayurveda dispensary – Koorachundu

10 Homeo Dispensary (NRHM)– Koorachundu

11 KHEP Govt. L P School – Kakkayam

12 ICDS Supervisor and 19 Anganwadi

– Centres

13 LSGD Section (Koorachundu/Kottur)

14 Village Extension Officers for

– Koorachundu and Kallanode circles

15 Koorachund Village Panchayat

– Kudumbasree Community

Development Society

16 Koorachundu Village Panchayat

– Literacy Mission


Income & Expenditure

Own Fund Receipts2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15

0

1,00,00,000

2,00,00,000

3,00,00,000

4,00,00,000

5,00,00,000

6,00,00,000

7,00,00,000

8,00,00,000

9,00,00,000

OutlayExpenditure

1995-96 2003-04 2014-150

10,00,000

20,00,000

30,00,000

40,00,000

Total amounts Received


Details of Own Fund 2014-15Property TaxPro fession taxOther TaxesPFA l icen se feeD&O l icense feeBuild in g permit feeBuild in g f itness feeB irth and Death Reg istrat ion FeeMarriage R eg istrat ion Fee

Details of Plan Fund received

1996-97 2003-04 2008-09 2014-150

1,00,00,000

2,00,00,000

3,00,00,000

4,00,00,000

5,00,00,000


Details of Plan Fund 1996-97Untied fund

Basic tax g ran t

Establ ishment g rand

Minor irr igat ion

Vil lage road Main ten an ce g ran t

Vehicle taxComprehensive g ran t

Special Gran t

Other g ran ts An d don at ions

Other rece ipts From governmen t


Details of Plan Fund 2014-15Dev e lopment fund(gen eral )

Deve lopmen t fun d(SCP)

Dev e lopment fund(TSP )

Main tenance g ran t ( road)

Main ten an ce gran t (n on road)

13th FinanceCommission Gran t

World Ban k Assistance

Gen eral PurposeGran t

MGNR EGS fund Funds rece ivedFrom department

Fun d – OldAge pension

Fund- Window Pension

Fun d – Spinsters Above 50 years Pen sion

Fund -DisabledPension

Fun d -AgricultureLabourers Pen sion

Marriage Assistan ce

Unemploymen tAl lowances

Child we lfare

MLA fun d MP fund


Projects – Sector wise 2014-15

Sl. No. Sectors No. of projects

Funds

Outlay Expenditure

1 Production (General) 8 46,69,975 18,49,718

2 Service (General) 51 4,49,89,621 1,28,33,903

3Infrastructure (general) 98

2,00,87,428 1,12,87,849

4 Service (SCP) 17 1,35,46,076 27,82,584

5 Infrastructure (SCP) 1 2,00,000 1,95,128

6 Service(TSP) 5 26,96,795 1,94,600

Total 180 8,61,89,895 2,91,43,782


Major focus areas of Panchayat

Developing Basic Infrastructure,

Providing drinking water by implementing

Drinking Water Supply Schemes, and

Provide housing to the homeless.


Introduction

We have seen different categories of funds village panchayat receive.

But they are not unconditional.

Utilising them are strictly controlled by the

government through numerous directions like

Guidelines /Orders /Circulars etc.

Some directions are directionless?


Responsibilities Citizen have right to Information to have the basic details

about their surroundings in an authentic fashion. Local governments - Custodians of Asset registers

The details of basic infrastructure - road networks and other public facilities.

First respondents in case of any hazards , in practical sense.

Requirement by RTI Act - 2005 Sections 4(1), 4(2), 4(3) , 4(4) : Local governments - public authorities Responsible for maintaining their records duly catalogued

and indexed, Responsible to provide as much information suo

motu to the public through various means of communications, including internet.


Contradictions Essence of the definition of E-Governance by UNESCO

Encourage Citizen Participation in Governance . Central govt guidelines – GIS to be applied.

Common Guidelines for Watershed Development Projects , 2008 – Use current trends & advances in IT & Remote Sensing, Technology inputs - GIS.

Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana Guidelines – Assets to be mapped using GIS.

But village panchayats can't formulate GIS projects Vide Govt. Circular No: 71639/IB1/2012/LSGD dated

11/3/2013 - Enforces restrictions over individual software development activities of the LSGIs of Kerala,

Vide Govt. Circular No:1942/D.C.2/2013/LSGD dated 13/12/2013 - Prohibits village panchayats from formulating projects to develop a custom GIS.


#OpenGeoData

Koorachundu Village Panchayat - State of Affairs – No Resource Map, No Cadastral Map,

No GIS. But pops up several instances to draw maps :

Kasturirangan report, Ward delimitation, Sevagram Gramakendram etc.

Need baseline GeoData for Developmental Planning and Implementation and to empower the stakeholders . Need of OpenGeoData in case of Emergencies - without

hassle. It is easy to draw maps from the layers of GIS , when in need. If there is commonly accessible repository of OpenGeoData ,

people can access the data when they need, without any formal requests to the village panchayat, satisfying the responsibil ity imposed by RTI Act .


All we had was: Ward Map


Objectives

Develop the different layers of vil lage panchayat level OpenGeoData , with community participation to suit the needs of suo-motu dissemination of spatial information to encourage and enable the effective citizen participation in the decision-making process.

Ensure that this necessary spatial information can be

accessed with the attribute data in local /

regional language.


Implementation Strategy

Administrative• Don't formulate a formal project (Ref:

Circulars mentioned before).• Make use of the government circulars/ orders/

guidelines to draw any kind of map to enhance that level of existing base of OpenGeoData.

Technical• Use the existing OpenGeoData platforms and

Free/OpenSource frameworks and ensure the community volunteering involvements to minimise the expenses.


State Election Commission'sOrder

Order No. 311/2014/SEC Dated: 18/6/2014

LSGIs of Kerala have no systematically prepared

base maps useful for administrative, scientific and

academic purposes as an official document.

Such a map would be useful as a base document for

future delimitation of wards or bifurcation of LSGIs.


Activities

1st Phase

Koorachundu Village panchayat OpenStreetMap

Mapping Party

GPS Survey - 4 days - 21/07/2014 to 24/07/2014.

20 OSM - GPS survey volunteers.

17 Field level resource persons.

Team – 1 or 2 OSM volunteers + 1 or 2 resource person.

Food and accommodation by Village Panchayat.


Essentials

Steering Committee resolution no: 2 dated 17/07/2014. - To conduct OpenStreetMap mapping party to map the area.

Official partnership with Swathanthra Malayalam Computing.

Volunteers from Swathanthra malayalam Computing, Dr. R.Satheesh Centre for Remote Sensing and GIS- Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam and from Wikimedians and one from IT@School project.

Field level resource persons from Village panchayat.


Partnership

Swathanthra Malayalam Computing have expertise in Indian Language Computing and FOSS domain and using ICTs for Development .

Both Village Panchayat and SMC conceived this as an OpenGeoData initiative :

–Start from OpenStreetMap and extend to other elements.

Swathanthra Malayalam Computing helped in mobilising experts, volunteers and trainers and done the technology and implementation part of the programme.


How we did it.

In field:Android mobile phones with GPS receiverThree Android Apps

GPS Logger for Android (GPL)Keypad-Mapper – OpenStreetMap (BSD)OSMTracker for Android™ (GPL V3)GPX tracks and data in OSM format

At desk:JOSM (GPL)iD (WTFPL)and Microsoft Bing Imagery


In Field


GPS Logger for Android


Keypad-Mapper - OpenStreetMap


OSMTracker for Android™


At Desk - JOSM


At Desk - iD

F


Before Mapping activities

After Mapping party


Achievements

Output - PhysicalCreated the Base OpenGeoData with the following

layers:Ward boundaries(2010),Place names, Road network (partial), Polling booths, Integral institutions,Other major institutions and Places of worship.


Processing techniqueto build map

Followed a Standard ETL ProcedureExtracted the data from OpenStreetMapTransformed and Loaded in QGIS

Processed and prepared map with QGISVector → OpenStreetMap → Import topology

form .osm(xml)Output SpatiaLite DB →Export topology to

SpatiaLite DB in QGISCompose in QGIS Map Composer → Exported

as .svgFinishing works with Inkscape


Resultant Administrative Map


Continuing work

2nd phase

Village reorganisation in progress (4 into 1), involving

surveyors from the Dept. of Survey & Land Records ,

the authorities at the revenue village offices .

Joint field verification is finished, now under the verification

of Taluk authorities.

Village Panchayat will get an accurate Cadastral Map,

and hopefully the #OpenGeoData of cadastral details also as

a by-product.


Four Villages


Joint Field Verification


Joint Field Verification


Sustainability - Replicability

We felt that this method involving stakeholder communities, is the most cost effective way to develop baseline GIS data for a village panchayat.

People seeking GeoData for their needs, can directly download the data from OpenGeoData repositories .

That will encourage and empower the people to effectively involve in planning/administrative process.


[email protected]

More details about the work at:

http://blog.smc.org.in/mapping-efforts-in-an-unsurveyed-land-koorachundu/


mailto:[email protected]

http://blog.smc.org.in/mapping-efforts-in-an-unsurveyed-land-koorachundu/