THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Nedumangad municipality now has a complete Geographic Information System for Local Body (GISLB) system, thus becoming the first geoinformatics municipality in the district. The project which took four months to complete with a budget of Rs 21 lakh is a comprehensive data consolidation which is expected to help with future project plans here. This is the third municipality in the state with a complete digital mapping system along with GISLB. Thodupuzha in Idukki and Harippad in Alappuzha are the only other municipalities with the system in place.
“The details include roads, streetlights, house numbers, occupants, their diseases, water resources, water taps and even pets in a house. Once the system is completely operational, it will help in easier reference and research when projects are formulated in future. There is also an year-long waiting period by which we can make any necessary corrections in the data,” said Chettachal Sahadevan, chairperson, Nedumangad municipality.
Digital mapping was also done marking various locations, houses and all roads. The field work and data analysis were done by the Grameenaa Patanakendram in Karakulam.
“There are three types of surveys for this. One is mapping with which we identify land use, second is a road connectivity survey with which we also do streetlight mapping and the third survey is a social survey with which we collect data of the people.
We have an Android software for this and we rely on people in each ward to collect the information after a two-day training. For the first two types of surveys we have an experienced team,” said Sreekantan V, executive coordinator, Grameena Patanakendram, Karakulam.