Geo-informatics to provide better services

SHILLONG: The Meghalaya Geographical Information System (GIS) was launched on Monday after a MoU was signed in the presence of Chief Minister Conrad Sangma in the city.
The State Government is implementing the Meghalaya GIS project, GIS based Decision Support Systems (DSS), to provide services to citizen, businesses and Government departments.
The MoU was signed between M. S. Rao, president & CEO of National e-Governance Division (NeGD) and M. R. Synrem, Commissioner and Secretary, State IT&C Department.
The Meghalaya GIS project aims to on-board the State Departments to the National Centre for Geo-informatics (NCoG). Under NCoG, the GIS platform has been developed for sharing, collaboration, location-based analytics and DSS.
It will provide opportunities to leverage the latest equipment, satellite date, technologies and techniques in the Geospatial domain and explore cases wherein the capabilities of Geo-informatics, GPS (Global Positioning System) and sensors can be integrated to develop next generation applications.
The Meghalaya GIS project will facilitate the use of spatial and geo-spatial technologies for the planning and developmental activities pertaining to several, sectors viz. agriculture, land and water resource management, wasteland/watershed development, forestry, disaster management, infrastructure, education, tourism, hydel projects, water supply and others.
The NeGD, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (Meity), collaborated with the State Information Technology & Communications (IT&C) Department, for implementing the Meghalaya GIS project by on-boarding to the NCoG platform.
To equip the State Government officials on the use of GIS for planning and decision making, a one-day workshop was also organised by the IT&C Department in coordination with NeGD and the Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics (BISAG), Gujarat. During the workshop, a demonstration was also given on the applications of GIS in Meghalaya based on actual data of the concerned Departments.