Citizens depend on their government to use resources effectively in order to improve quality of life for the community. Despite their best efforts, many governments fails to collect & share accurate information about the resources available.
In Kerala, the Local Self Government Institutions were facing the same issues in identifying the Government Assets and Infrastructure for proper spatial planning and resource management. The Government was trying to implement a GIS based system for the past many years, but unfortunately the same didn't show any progress due to lack of technology and system support.
We under the Program Management Unit of Rashtreeya Gram Swaraj Abhiyaan initiated a thought process of developing an open source solution for the same.
While searching for a solution , i came about the Open Data Kit, we were really surprised by the functionality and scalability that ODK Offered. We did a pilot of mapping the Local Body Institutions in Thrissur District of Kerala under the authority of Deputy Director of Panchayat and monitoring of the implementation of the project by myself.
I should say, it was like a terrific change we had brought to the system. The entire process of implementing the ODK Aggregate Server in Google App Engine, creation and configuration of XLSForms and training to field operators in ODK Collect and successive data collection and visualization was completed in a weeks time. The Local Self Government Department has taken up the pilot and are in the process of implementing Open Data Kit for all Departments in Government of Kerala.
We again take this opportunity to thank all contributors and members of ODK who have made this a perfect open source tool for the forthcoming mobile computing world.
GIS Enabled Mapping of Local Bodies in Thrissur District using Open Data Kit and Google Sites
a) https://sites.google.com/site/lsgdkerala2015/
b)http://dop.lsgkerala.gov.in
c)http://dop.lsgkerala.gov.in/ml/news/478
regards,
Anup Krishna P
Specialist MIS,
RGSA PMU,
Local Self Government Department,
Govt. of Kerala, India
Email: mistcr.rgpsa@gmail.com, anupkp1107997@kerala.gov.in
Ph: 94479 23410, 94960 46910