[Talk-in] About having a mapping party in Koorachundu Village Panchayat - Kozhikode district - Kerala - Reg.
Jaisen Nedumpala
jaisuvyas at gmail.com
Fri Jul 11 17:12:45 UTC 2014
2014-07-08 11:46 GMT+05:30 Devdatta Tengshe <devdatta at tengshe.in>:
> Hi Jaisen,
> You have raised a lot of important points, and I appreciate that you have
> though of using OpenStreetMap for this.
>
>
Thank you for your response. I am sorry, that I couldn't respond to this
until now, because my 11 months old little daughter didn't allow me these
days to think about anything other than her, when I am at my home. :)
> Please note that I'm talking from my background of working on GIS projects
> with a lot of government organisations rather than just a strictly
> OpenStreetMapper. So others can chime in if I'm wrong.
>
> I have seen far too often that government Institutions give more
> importance to the map rather than the actual data. They do not understand
> that the map is just a representation of the data, and the data is far more
> important, as
> a)it is not limited by the scale of the map, and can be of a
> much higher resolution and accuracy.
> b) can be used for other processes & analysis.
>
Yes, it is.
>
> This is why I believe that databases like OpenStreetmap can be useful.
>
> However, I can foresee multiple challenges in achieving what you want.
>
> 1) Firstly, Government Institutions need data which is authoritative and
> certifiable. Will your panchayat and other institutions accept a map that
> is not from any legally recognised Authority?
>
Ok. Let me clarify what I think. Let us check that.
The term "certify" means, "Attest or confirm in a formal statement"
and a "Certificate" is, "An official document attesting a fact, in
particular"
and "Authoritative" means "Able to be trusted as being accurate or true;
reliable:"
Ref: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/
Now let us check, who has the authority and who is authorised to certify
here:
1. Grama Sabhas and Village Panchayats are constitutional bodies, whose
authority is guaranteed by the Articles 243-243O in PART IX of the
constitution of India.
Ref: (1): http://www.constitution.org/cons/india/p09.html
(2)
http://lawmin.nic.in/olwing/coi/coi-english/Const.Pock%202Pg.Rom8Fsss%2813%29.pdf
2. Now we will check, the relevent portions in the Kerala Panchayat Raj
Act, 1994:
"Section 166. Powers, duties and functions of village panchayat. - (1) It
shall be the duty of the village panchayat to meet the requirements of the
village panchayat area in respect of the matters enumerated in the Third
Schedule:
Provided that it shall be the duty of the village panchayat to render
services to the inhabitants of the village panchayat area in respect of the
matters enumerated as mandatory functions in the Third Schedule."
Now what is there in the Third Schedule?
"THIRD SCHEDULE - Functions of Village Panchayats
B. General Functions - 1. Collection and updating of essential statistics."
Now let us check, whether there any relation with statistics with maps.
Just search in any of the search engines, with the key "statistics related
map". Google image search will return a lot of results. Those are the proof
for "Maps are helpful for presenting statistics, and for presenting updated
statistics, over time" So, mapping can be justified, because it help to
carry out the fuction of village panchayat "Collection and updating of
essential statistics". [Am I apprears to be an interpretation factory?:) ]
Now, what is the relevant powers of the president of a village panchayat?
"Section 156. Function of President and Vice-President. - Save as otherwise
expressly provided by or under this act, the executive power for the
purpose of carrying out the provisions of this act and the resolution
passed by a panchayat shall vest in the President thereof who shall be
directly responsible for the due fulfilment of the duties imposed upon the
panchayat by or under this act."
So the president is the executive authority of a village panchayat.
Now, let us also check the relevant powers of the secretary of a village
panchayat too:
"Section 182. Powers and functions of the Secretary. - Subject to the
provisions of this Act and the rules grade there under, Secretary the as
executive officer of the panchayat shall, -
(v) discharge all the duties and exercise all the powers specifically
imposed or conferred on the Secretary by or under this Act."
So the secretary is the executive officer to a village panchayat. Now, just
have a look at the following section too, in the KPR Act, Which I think is
relevant in this case:
"Section 250: Protection of Acts done in good faith
(1) No suit prosecution or other legal proceedings shall lie against the
president, vice-president, any member, secretary, any officer or employee
of a panchayat for anything which is in good faith done or purported or
intended to be done in pursuance of this Act or any rule or bye-law made
thereunder."
That is the legal protection guaranteed by the KPR act. In my previous
mail, I erroneously used the term "good will" instead of "good faith".
(Occured due to incorrect translation - Sorry for that. - I usually don't
use the English text of this act, as it is almost irrelevant in our day to
day works. We use Malayalam text instead.)
Let us also check the powers and responsibilities of Grama Sabha too:
"Section 3 A: Powers, function and rights of the Grama Sabha. –
(7) Resolutions may be passed on majority basis, in the meetings of the
Grama Sabha in respect of any issue with in its jurisdiction, however,
effort should be made to take decision on the basis of general consensus as
far as possible."
"Section 3. B. Responsibilities of Grama Sabha. - (1) The Grama Sabha shall
have the following responsibilities namely: -
(i) dissemination of information regarding developmental and welfare
activities;"
So, Grama Sabha has the authority to pass resolutions with respect to any
issue within their jurisdiction. Besides Grama Sabha has a responsibility
to disseminate information too.
Ref:
http://www.nrcddp.org/file_upload/the%20kerala%20panchayat%20raj%20act%201994.pdf
These are all there in the constitution and in the KPR Act. Based on all
these, I think,
1. If the President of a village panchayat decides to map (or develop a
GIS for) the village panchayat area, and
2. the Secretary of that village panchayat carries out the mapping
activity, with the help of both
(1) the competent persons with relevant technical expertise
and
(2) the local resource persons who know the area, and
3. after the mapping, the map (or GIS) is certified by the secretary
of that village panchayat, that would be a legally valid document.
4. Arrangements can also be made to verify and certify it, with any of
the public sector GIS facilities in the country, to ensure the the
technical accuracy.
5. Then present the map in the forthcoming Grama Sabha, and get their
approval by a formal resolution.
Result: An authoritative and legally valid map (or GIS) of village
panchayat. Right?
But village panchayats are unable to spend funds for that, because of the
resrictions imposed by the government by a circular in the following link:
http://www.go.lsgkerala.gov.in/files/cr20131213_9208.pdf
> 2) You have mentioned the following 7 different priorities for the
> mapping. Out of these 2, 3, 5, 6 & 7 can be created either from satellite
> Data, or
>
> Ground Survey (The Ground survey can be done with a simple Android Phone).
>
This is what I do to map the places I go, for OpenStreetMap.
> Generally it will not be possible to generate data for points 1, 2 & 4
> satellite Data or Ground Survey, since they are not features on the Ground,
> but boundaries in some map or described in some document. In certain cases,
> there might be boundary markers on the ground.
>
The priority list in my prevoius mail:
1. The geographical boundaries of Koorachundu village panchayat.
2. Existing ward boundaries (which was fixed in 2010).
2. Rivers and Streams.
3. Roads.
(No need to map railway line, because it doesn't exist here.)
4. Forest area.
5. Buildings which can be used as potential polling booths.
6. All the ways/foot paths to those buildings.
7. Assets, Landuse and Water resources if possible within this time-limit.
Oh, I have two 2 here. :) typo. Sorry again.
> If you need Authentic Data for these, you need the source data. Do you
> have the Ward Boundary, Panchayat Boundary and Forest Area Boundary from
> the concerned departments?
>
We know the geographical boundaries of Koorachundu village panchayat
(Otherwise how do we work here?). A map of the village panchayat is here in
this link:
http://lsgkerala.in/koorachundupanchayat/gallery/map/
We also have a copy of a recent govenment notification, which describes
whichever survey plots of each revenue village comes within the
jurisdiction of Koorachundu Village Panchayat.
There is an approved ward delimitation document, describes what are the
boundaries of each ward, that is also available.
We have the map of the Forest Range, from Kerala Forests and Wildlife
Department. Buildings which can be used as potential polling booths - also
described in an officially approved document.
> Once these questions have been answered, maybe something can be worked out.
>
Hope, I have answered all these questions, satisfactorily. :)
As per the SEC order, we the officials at the panchayat level, have the
duty only to draw the existing ward boundaries (which were fixed in 2010)
and notable geographical marks after field verification, on the map
delivered (in A3 size) by the Department of Land records, now.
So, My plan is to achieve a better result, in a joint effort of both ward
level resource persons, and OpenStreetMap volenteers, in a Mapping party.
1. Add the village panchayat boundary to the OpenStreetMap (That we already
have), But need to make some sort of adjustments after field verification,
using JOSM.
2. Add the ward boundaries to the openstreet map as laid down in the ward
delimitation document, after field verification using JOSM.
3. Then download the data of the village panchayat area from OpenStreetMap,
convert it to Shapefiles or import it to GRASS DB.
4. Georeference the map supplied by the Department of Survey and Land
Records, with this downloaded OSM data, and prepare the map with ward
boundaries using either QGIS or GRASS.
5. Print the map in A3 Size, and in whatever scale as per SEC's requirement.
6. In this way
1. we at village panchayat, will get an almost accurate GIS, to build
upon it later as per our future requirements,
2. OSM will get the village panchayat boundaries with its ward limits,
and
3. State Election Commission will get a map as per their requirement.
:)
Does it work?
I will consult with the President, and Secretary on coming monday, and with
their consent, I will inform the dates we can have a mapping party here. If
anyone can find any problem in this plan, that I couldn't foresee, may
please point it out before monday morning. Hope, somebody can help us to
acheive this.
> Regards,
> Devdatta Tengshe
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 6:44 AM, Jaisen Nedumpala <jaisuvyas at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> The location is here:
>>
>> http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/11.5475/75.8735
>>
>>
>> 2014-07-07 6:36 GMT+05:30 Jaisen Nedumpala <jaisuvyas at gmail.com>:
>>
>>
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