P 70 GIS Experience

P  70

GIS Experience

When one analyse what made SM to have that doubt or worry, he was right for the following reasons:
1) Had it been to continue the digitization functions with UK establishment, how and who will identify the satellite imagery coordinates and indent to SI at USA, who will manage and clear the digitized outputs and how to transfer them to India  etc. were the moot questions
2) If they have to be brought to India for digitization, with the Govt. restrictions, how to import them?
3) Assuming that even that hurdle is overcome,  do we have the manpower and technical capability to carry out mass digitization and manage the outputs?

So all these challenges fell on my head; but my team of champions stood with me to face them.

First we  tried carrying out digitization of these three sample data with the manpower drawn from DSM, Trichy,as it had some geography and geology qualified engineers and they had some back ground experience of digitizing Indian satellite imagery. To name a few- M/S Arulmani, Kumaran, Ms Bharathi, Badri were the front end personnel. Using Microstation, they practiced to digitize Ikonas data  and gained confidence.Later they made simple QA tool to check whether all attributes are picked by the agency operator or how much miss out and how to convey the status for rework etc.
With that back ground, I initiated to convene a joint meeting of available known digitization agencies across India-Totally nine parties and asked Divyesh Mehta , procurement services head to fix the schedule and date.
I cannot forget that date Aug.9th, 2000, since that was the day Mumbai had high tension due to Bal Thackeray slated arrest for Dabhol scandal & I was afraid how the outstation parties will make to Bombay and attend! But to my pleasant surprise almost all parties made it and sharp 9.30Hrs meeting started. As KMJ was GIS specialist from ESRI India, I asked him to conduct the proceedings and derive a common process and procedure for IKONAS Imagery Digitization by various agencies. As there were 9 party reps. and Reliance functional specialists including KMJ+ procurement team, each one was dragging to their vested interest  and no semblance of coherence was there even after 9 hours marathon meeting ! When I entered to take stock of the situation things were aghast. Typical of AR, I heard each one of them and then took the call. Even as of now, I do not how I came to that conclusion of setting the process by hand picking three personnel(from three different agencies- one from Hyderabad and two from Delhi) and assigned them responsibility to draft  a detailed procedure and process ,then get it vetted/ratified by all stake holders and freeze. I never met those three before and do not know their back ground expertise but took that gamble,which paid off. The only request they made was that their man-hours will cost Reliance  Rs 1 lac. for this task. Myself and Divyesh Mehta readily agreed  and assigned the task to be completed in flat 21 days, which they complied.
Proud to share that became National Standard for Digitization of Satellite Imagery.
                                                                                                                       Contd........

Key Aspects :- Attitude, Codes&Standard, Incident analysis, Initiative,  Leadership, Team building,  Proactive approach