Mapping efforts in an unsurveyed land: Koorachundu village panchayat experience - Jaisen Nedumpala (Assistant Secretary, Koorachundu Village Panchayat; Member of Executive Committee, Swathanthra Malayalam Computing) State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Village Panchayats State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.  Constitutional bodies.  Local authorities - Quasi judicial powers - First respondents in case of disasters.  Implementing agency - Developmental projects of it's own and, of the government.  Role in Environmental protection - KPR Act 3rd Schedule -Environmental hygiene, awareness, upgradation; Social Forestry.  Biodiversity Management Committee (Biological Diversity Act - 2002)  Enforcement of building rules, ref. CRZ notification.

Village Panchayat Profile  India - Kerala - Kozhikode Dist. - Balussery Block.  87.98 KM2s. ?  Population: 17331(2011). Voters: 13639  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. State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Village Panchayat – Location State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Four revenue villages State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Village Panchayat – Features State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Integral Institutions, functionaries 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 Sisumandiram (Nursery School) – Kallanode 13 ICDS Supervisor and – 19 Anganwadi Centres 14 LSGD Section (Koorachundu/Kottur) 15 Village Extension Officers for – Koorachundu and Kallanode circles 16 Koorachund Village Panchayat – Kudumbasree Community Development Society 17 Koorachundu Village Panchayat – Literacy Mission 18 Koorachundu Village Panchayat – Samskarika Nilayam (Cultural Centre - Library & Reading room) State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan. Panchayat Secretary, Five gazetted officers, Four non-gazetted implementing officers - A total staff strength of 107 including 21 @ O/o Village Panchayat.

Major focus areas of Panchayat Develop Basic Infrastructure, Provide drinking water by implementing Drinking Water Supply Schemes, and Provide housing to the homeless. State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Introduction We receive different categories of funds from the government for developmental activities. But they are not unconditional. Utilising them are strictly controlled by the government through numerous directions like Guidelines /Orders /Circulars etc. State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Responsibilities  Citizens have the 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. State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

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 the 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 or spend money to develop a custom GIS. State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

#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 responsibility imposed by RTI Act - Sec: 4(1), 4(2), 4(3), 4(4). State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

All we had was: Ward Map State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Objectives  Develop the different layers of village 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. State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

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 of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

State Election Commission's Order  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. State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

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. State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

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. State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

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. State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

How we did it.  In field:  Android mobile phones with GPS receiver  Three 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 State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

In Field State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

GPS Logger for Android State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Keypad-Mapper - OpenStreetMap State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

OSMTracker for Android™ State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

At Desk - JOSM State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

At Desk - iD  F State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

At Desk State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Before Mapping activities After Mapping party State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Achievements  Output - Physical  Created 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. State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Processing technique to build map  Followed a Standard ETL Procedure  Extracted the data from OpenStreetMap  Transformed and Loaded in QGIS  Processed and prepared map with QGIS  Vector → OpenStreetMap → Import topology form .osm(xml)  Output SpatiaLite DB →Export topology to SpatiaLite DB in QGIS  Compose in QGIS Map Composer → Exported as .svg  Finishing works with Inkscape State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Boundary Map from Survey Dept. State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Resultant Administrative Map State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

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 and, the verification of Taluk authorities is finished, and submitted for the Government approval.  Village Panchayat will get an accurate Cadastral Map, and hopefully the #OpenGeoData of cadastral details also as a by-product. State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Joint Field Verification State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Joint Field Verification State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Draft Village Map State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Check the shape with this.. State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Sustainability  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.  Data also will be available at finger tip, when in case of hazards, to draw maps to plan logistics. State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.

Full story on the work is at: http://blog.smc.org.in/mapping-efforts-in-an-unsurveyed-land-koorachundu/ ? jaisuvyas@gmail.com State of the Map 2017 Conference – Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan.