Kerala's Local Bodies Now Had The Privilege To Achieve Detailed Maps Available
Update: 2021-11-04 15:00 IST
'Map Kerala,' an Open Street Map (OSM)-based data portal with detailed maps of Kerala's local governments, is now available. Open Data Kerala (ODK), a group of individuals and organisations seeking to make all data about Kerala open-source, has started an initiative that makes geospatial map data on the state available to everyone.
A user may quickly inspect the openly available facilities in a local body, whether they are petrol pumps, libraries, auditoriums, or ATMs, without wasting time. On today's platforms, such information isn't available. They hoped that our gateway will stimulate initiatives that will fill in the gaps in knowledge.
All of these data sets are available for download at map.opendatakerala.org. Amenities, education, emergency, nature, political, public transportation, recreation, religion, and tourism are among the data sets. The programme now includes 1,034 local bodies, including panchayats, municipalities, and companies.
In the following phases, ODK intends to cover block and district panchayats, as well as districts. They intend to develop the project with additional details in the future, they are attempting to keep it simple so that it can be accessed even on low-bandwidth connections.
Approximately 400 people are currently contributing to the project. Along with Manoj, other ODK members who contributed to the Map Kerala Portal include Naveen Francis, Arjun Ganghadharan, Jinoy, Kelvin, Jaison Nedumbala, Jothish, Akshay Dinesh, and Abraham. Henis and Marcel, two mappers from Germany, are also helping with boundary mapping in Kerala.
For mapping, OSM has used a Wikipedia model.Akshay Dinesh, the project's lead developer stated that anyone can anonymously draw the maps, and their activity will be tracked since it is a community-driven voluntary endeavour, open street map volunteers will trace the history of editing and correct inaccuracies by connecting with the corresponding contributor.
The group also wants to make the map data publicly available. Manoj Karingamadathil stated. Others argue that data mapped at the federal level should be made available to the general public.
Despite the fact that the government is extensively investing in GIS-based mapping, all of them are inaccessible. An open data campaigner, Naveen Francis, stated that officials must provide open access to data affecting government departments maintained on the government's open data website in order to create more public-driven initiatives in the future.