Sunday, April 10, 2011

Fazilka Going Digital this Saturday - GNDEC and GWAF joins hands to make Fazilka’s eMap

After attaining the many first status in the India and Worldwide because of its handmade Jutti, Tosha, 1965-1971 India Pakistan War, dial-a-rickshaw and the latest India's first Car free city, this coming Saturday one more star would be added to the name of Fazilka.  Fazilka would join the league of first 40 big cities available via open street Digital Maps online and first in the tier II towns of the country.



In the era of technology, Graduates Welfare Association Fazilka (GWAF) joins hands with North India's technical giant Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College (GNDEC), Ludhiana to prepare digital map of Fazilka and making it available to public, through Internet, as their own map. A map created by public, for the public, and owned by public. The GWAF and GNDEC's joint efforts will make India's smallest big town actually on Global Map network.  Geeta Softech would be the local host to conduct the map party event for the same. Talking to media persons project mentor, Prof (Dr.) H.S Rai enumerated the advantages and benefits of digital map. Prof. Rai explained "The project is called Open Street Map. Open Street maps are free editable maps made with the help of the GPS by anyone at anytime. These maps allows us to view, edit and use geographical data in a collaborative way from anywhere on the globe. Through unrestricted access to data, such digital maps empower the citizens, ultimately resulting in numerous innovations." Further emphasizing the concept of digital map and map party, he informed that this project will help the Government and NGOs in their social welfare schemes, to provide them geographical information for their projects. It will also promote tourism and help journalists and students a lot.


"The quality data so produced will also facilitate easy navigation for commuters. It is very useful for a small town like Fazilka, has its presence on global map; due to its environment related activities in the recent past and world like to know more about it.  Giving further details about the event, Navdeep Asija, Secretary (Admin), GWAF informed, "we have selected 20 people belonging to different domains, like draftsmen, farmers, people from defence services, budding Civil Engineering Architecture students & map lovers, each one will be having a GPS device to capture the ground realities, land marks, eating outlet, hotels, restaurants, and other related attributes as a part of Mapping party, further information obtained by all shall be combined and uploaded". Geeta Softech Fazilka would be acting as facility provider." There are hundreds of active mappers today, but since the concept is fairly new to India, is fast catching up, and we are happy to associate our self with the great cause for our city beautiful", said Mr Vinod Kumar, Director Geeta Softech Interestingly, all data generated will be available in public domain, which may be used by anybody, the way one likes, without bearing the burden of any charge. The information will be available on the website http://osm.org .


Fazilka city being one of the hot spot on border area tourism in the Malwa region of Punjab, for its original art and culture, rural tourism, black buck sanctuary, border retreat, such information will help visitor at large, and in the era of technological advancement, it is a welcoming step, said Dr Bhupinder Singh, Patron GWAF. Free training shall be given and each participant will be honoured with Certificate of Appreciation.


 http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Fazilka_Mapping

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