PUBLIC ACCESS TO INDIAN GEOGRAPHICAL DATA CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 79, NO. 4, 25 AUGUST 2000 489 SWOT analysis of geographic information: The case of India Ravi Gupta Centre for Spatial Database Management and Solutions (CSDMS), A-13, Sector 22, Noida 201 301, India Geographic information is today being extensively used in decision making processes because it has be- come a fundamental element to provide better un- derstanding about one's surroundings. Sustainable development relies on the control of the conse- quences of public decisions regarding natural re- sources, people and the involved interrelationships. More importantly, geographic information is a tool of democracy, which must be used in public debate as it enables visualization of the impact of planning decisions on society and to explain the rationale be- hind a particular decision. Today, most of the coun- tries are set to exploit the potential of mapping technology. The present paper provides a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of the Indian geographic information situation using the international scenario as a back- drop. 1. Introduction Geographic Information Systems (GIS) promises greater efficiency in commerce, improvements in envi- ronment, health, safety, increased convenience for con- sumers, more citizen participation in governance and improved public and private decision making in general. But, legal regimes for protecting and managing compi- lations of digital spatial data are underdeveloped and unclear all over the world. The concepts of ownership of digital spatial data, protection of privacy, access rights to spatial data compiled and held by govern- ments, and information liability are still evolving in the context of GIS and spatial data. GIS may be defined as a tool that uses the location at which an object exists or an activity occurs as a unify- ing concept across which information in a variety of forms may be merged, referenced, sorted, and analysed. Reality is represented by a set of mapped space where every attribute or event of concern has either a direct or indirect locational element. GIS enable the planned sys- tematic collection, maintenance, and management of location-based information and the automated process- ing of that information. The computerized integration of e-mail: Ravi.Gupta@csdms.org information through spatial links has the ability to greatly enhance decision making across a wide range of applications 1 . Governments are spending billions of dollars on col- lection of geographic information knowingly or un- knowingly. For example, US spends more than 4 billion dollars per year on geographic data acquisition 2 . In France, the public financing of geographic information projects represents 0.17% of public development aid 3 . Other countries are also spending huge amount of money for data generation, acquisition, documentation and dissemination. Recent estimates show that the worldwide investment in GIS technologies by govern- ment and private sector ranges from US $3.3 billion 4 to more than $8 billion 5,6 with annual growth rate reaching nearly thirty per cent. And surely these investments are not without reasons. A report by the Economic Studies and Strategies Unit of Price Waterhouse on the economic benefits arising from the acquisition and maintenance of the nation’s land and geographic information has estimated that for the period 1989–94 approximately $1 billion has been spent in Australia on investment in geographic data. This investment produced benefits within the economy in the order of $4.5 billion. The study also found that this investment has saved users approximately $5 bil- lion. This implies that there is a saving of $5 on the in- vestment of $1. The study concluded that the existing infrastructure for supplying data had provided informa- tion to users at low cost than alternative methods. If this infrastructure had not been in place, and users had been forced to meet their data requirements from other sources, their costs would have been 6 times higher; if the benefits are to continue, an additional investment of 30% of existing funding levels will be required to meet the growing demand for data usage 7 . Thus it is clear that governments all over the world realize that geographic information is an important infrastructure for a nation’s development. The government is the biggest geographic data generator. It happens to be the biggest consumer also. In India, for example, out of Rs 14.30 crore reve- nue of National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) from sale of remote sensing imagery in 1998–99, 83% revenue was from the government departments them- selves 8 .