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e-Ramanagaram leaves B’lore way behind

By Shubha Narayanan DH News Service Bangalore:

Guess which town is about to overtake IT City Bangalore in terms of technology-driven governance? Ramanagaram, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy’s own constituency.

Guess which town is about to overtake IT City Bangalore in terms of technology-driven governance? Ramanagaram, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy’s own constituency.

The City Municipal Council of Ramanagaram will have Geographical Information System (GIS) and Management Information System (MIS) in place by October 15. Being implemented under the eGovern GIS scheme, by eGovernments Foundation, 90 per cent of the work has already been completed. Incidentally, the achievement is less than 30 per cent in Bangalore, where it was launched about two-and-a-half years ago, along with Ramanagaram and 55 other towns and cities in Karnataka.

According a senior official of the Urban Development Department, the GIS is targeted at empowering the local body to improve property tax collection and plan development projects in the town.

Property profile

With the click of a button, the administrators can see the name of the property owner, the address and the property tax collected from him/her, the official adds.

The eGovern GIS will be integrated with the property tax package that is currently being designed by the Foundation and is expected to be launched in September.

But that is not all. The GIS will also facilitate the balancing of revenue through property tax with expenditure, which mainly comprise the ward works, points out Srikanth Nadhamuni, Managing Trustee, eGovernments Foundation.

Also, it will identify the priority areas for each locality in the town, whether it is road works, public transport or garbage collection, he says. However, our final goal is to make this information available to the public through the internet, Nadhamuni adds.

The GIS in Ramanagaram was done exhaustively through city sketches and ground surveys, with the help of local engineers and matriculate youth who were hired by the Ramanagaram Municipal Corporation exclusively for the survey work.

The Survey of India assisted in creating a model for representing GIS data, says Shivananda, Assistant Executive Engineer of City Municipal Council, Ramanagaram.

Technology and field-related validation processes are currently in process, adds Shadhakshraridevaru, senior programmer heading the IT team for e-GIS in Ramanagaram.

PATH TO e-GOVERNANCE

* Formation of revenue, engineering & IT teams.

* Division of town into four quadrants for survey and identification of ward & block limits

* Street naming and property numbering according to protocol

* Measurement of roads and property dimensions as per khata records with sketches

*Codes set to differentiate agrarian, commercial and residential properties

* Cross-checking of field data by Survey of India

* Preparation of town sketches and tables based on field survey

* Digitisation of data on properties

* Technology and field-related data scrutiny on

* Integration for MIS with GIS on

Website: www.ramanagaracity.gov.in