Background:
Crowd sourcing is a participative online activity
in which citizens of varying knowledge and heterogeneity
voluntarily involve in capturing geographic information sought
by crowd source for mutual benefit. This project is funded by
Karnataka Knowledge Commission to capture crowd sourced
geographic information (GI) on public assets and community
resources by training department officials and local youths.
The
utilization of geospatial data and services for a wide range of
uses has seen a steady growth in recent years. Recently planners
and administrators have indicated that the available spatial
data do not suffice the needs of planning at micro level. Based
on the felt need, a study has been taken up to assess the
capability of crowd sourcing to capture GI by authorities on
public assets and community resources to enrich and augment the
spatial content of the data. Crowd sourcing through authorised
sources enables authoritative data available at micro level in a
short span of time at nominal cost. Based on the experience
gained in exploring the concept of crowd sourcing in Gram
Panchayaths coming under Bangalore Rural District and Gulbarga
District, the council has taken up few more Gram Panchayath for
studying the ease at which these technologies can be used for
collecting and collating information on infrastructure and
resources in short span of time.
Mobile application developed on android platform provided
accepted spatial accuracy. The council intends to develop mobile
apps that can be used on multiple platforms. The earlier
exercise has demonstrated that capturing of GI on public assets
by authorities leads to ownership and accountability apart from
being a speedy and economical. This method is being proposed for
adoption on a wider scale to cover large number of such micro
administrative units. Estimated cost of capturing public assets
for entire state is expected to be around Rs. 16 crores.