Union Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Giriraj Singh released Rural Connectivity GIS Data in Public Domain. This includes GIS data for 800,000+ rural facilities as points, 1 Million+ habitations and 25,00,000+ km of rural roads which have been collected and digitised using the GIS platform developed for the PMGSY scheme.
NRIDA, the nodal implementation agency of the PMGSY scheme signed MoU with 3 renowned GIS Firms ESRI India, MapmyIndia, DataMeet & collaborated with Gati Shakti for releasing the Rural Connectivity GIS Data in Public Domain.
Giriraj Singh recalled that since the inception of the PMGSY scheme, more than 6.90 lakh km of roads have been constructed connecting 1,61,508 habitations with an expenditure of 2.69 lakh crores. The pace of construction of rural roads under PMGSY has seen massive growth during the last seven years and emphasis has been given to new technology resulting in a saving of about Rs 5000 crores.
The Minister informed that the data made available in the public domain can be beneficial to the startups, entrepreneurs, businesses, civil society, academics and other government departments to build products, conduct research, plan investments, improve service delivery and quick disaster response.
The Minister recalled the Prime Minister’s vision of “AtmaNirbhar Bharat” and said that it can be achieved only by developing rural India by use of rural infrastructure data now available with the government.
N.N.Sinha, Secretary (RD) informed that the rural infrastructure GIS data will help in bridging the gap between urban and rural India and transform India into Atmanirbhar Bharat. He also envisioned that the drones can be utilized for the delivery of essential commodities such as vaccines once all the addresses are digitized on the portal.
