CURRENT AFFAIRS

Description

Watch video on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzqT7O1d8c4

Meaning

Geotagging is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as photographs, video, websites. These data usually consist of latitude and longitude coordinates, though they can also include altitude, bearing, accuracy data, and place names.

Geotagging can help users find a wide variety of location-specific information. For instance, one can find images taken near a given location by entering latitude and longitude coordinates into a Geotagging-enabled image search engine.

Application of geotagging for Good Governance

Application of Geotagging can be understood using following example:

Government of India’s Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Housing for All (Urban) mission, launched in June 2015, envisions every family in the country owning a pucca house with water connection, toilet facilities and electricity supply.

The Mission is being systematically monitored at the city, state and central government levels as mandated by the Mission guidelines which states that “suitable monitoring mechanisms will be developed by the mission.”

Considering the progress of the Mission so far and the complexity of the monitoring task ahead, MoHUPA has signed a MoU with the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of Indian Space Research Organization to collaboratively implement a project to ‘geotag’ every single house which is being constructed under the ‘Beneficiary led Individual House Construction’ component of the Mission, using a mobile application.

The key objective of geo-tagging is to track progress of construction of individual houses through geo-tagged photographs.

Geotagging is driven by ‘surveyors’ who collect data with Bhuvan-PMAY mobile app and ‘supervisors’ who moderate the collected data at Bhuvan-PMAY geo-platform, based in the cities/states.

 
Schemes in which it is used and its benefits

Currently, geo-tagging is being used in a range of government schemes – MGNREGA, Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (Grameen), Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), for toilet construction under Swachh Bharat, as well as for highways and urban housing.

MGNREGA

Issues: Issues related to asset creation, taking up of trivial projects, sometimes absence of projects, and misappropriation of funds were common.

Benefits of Geotagging: All works are monitored by geo-tagging-before, during, and after completion to ensure full transparency in all works. Through the geotagging mechanism the government review and monitor assets to check leakages and effective mapping of terrain for future developmental works.

Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (Grameen)

Issues: Issues related to asset creation and leakages in funding as money alootted in used for other purposes due to lack of proper monitoring.

Benefits of Geotagging: Pictures of each stage in PMAY (G) – from existing house, to the proposed site of the new one, and progress at each step of construction – have to be uploaded on a government portal. It’s only after this is done that each instalment is released.

Hence benefits can be summed as:

• Cost-efficient and safe –the technology enables the project team to validate, monitor and evaluate actual progress on the ground without having to travel to hard-to-access locations and areas with high security risk, saving them precious manpower resources, time and effort.

• Easy reference - the technology provides donors, implementing agencies, contractors and other partners  with useful information about its sub-projects such as exact locations, dates of operation, land areas, distance covered and where they are situated in relation to other landmarks in the area.

Drawbacks in geotagging

1. Privacy Issues

Privacy advocates have expressed concern about geotagging, particularly when it occurs without the knowledge or consent of the person uploading a file.

For example,

·     Geotag data associated with photographs uploaded to Facebook can inform viewers when the user is out or on vacation, thus endangering security.

·     Geotagging can also facilitate cyberstalking, by allowing the perpetrator to track the victim's physical location.

·      It increases poaching incidents.

2.  Governance Issues

·    It has made these schemes excessively dependent on technology.

·  Erratic internet connections and lack of knowledge on the ground prove to be big hurdles. Similarly, in states where there is a shortage of ground functionaries, adding this extra technological intervention means greater burden on them.

·   The complexity of this process and its use, along with lack of adequate information dissemination often ends up confusing the worker or beneficiary on the ground, instead of necessarily aiding them.