A two-day workshop on 4th and 5th October 2004, on “Mapping the Neighbourhood” was conducted by students, at Gulmohar Hall, India Habitat Centre (IHC), New Delhi. The students were from ten schools of Hawalbagh development block of Almora district, Uttaranchal, participating in Mapping the Neighbourhood programme. The Honourable Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology and Ocean Development, Shri Kapil Sibal was the Chief Guest and Prof. V. S. Ramamurti, Secretary, DST as the Guest of Honour. Other dignitaries present were Sh. Amithabha Pande (former Joint Secretary, Department of Science & Technology), Y.S. Rajan (Principal Advisor, Confederation of Indian Industries), Ms. Alka Malhotra (UNICEF Representative), Sh. Sambhoo Singh, Brig. (Dr.) R. Sivakumar and Dr. Bhoop Singh from Department of Science and Technology (DST).

The first day of the workshop began with the students presenting their work through three presentations (overview, process and outputs) on the programme. After listening to the presentations, the Honorable Minister Shri Kapil Sibal highlighted the importance of such programmes not just for the benefit of the involved students, but also for the local community and for the entire country. He said, “The output of the project should not be measured in monetary terms- the returns are made on children…their learning there gain…”. The students presentations are available at www. neighbourhood-mapping.org.

Prof. V.S. Ramamurty expressed his worries on the widening of digital divide with the development of technology. He pointed out three areas of prime concern, viz., a) access to technology b)finance and c)connectivity. He said, “Children are more technology savvy compared to their parents – hence children need to be the disseminators of technological knowledge. The children through this exercise are learning to use information technology in their daily lives. Mapping the Neighborhood is far more important than just a project. It is a development tool that can help all of us. According to him, the maps produced under the project could be of immense help for solving some of the local problems.”

This was followed by an open discussion for the participants. During this, the future of the programme was discussed. Mr. Amitabha Pande said that the programme is still in its embryonic form and it has a long way to go before actually thinking about the use of its final output. Another important point discussed was the role of the indigenously produced maps in water management and rural sanitation.

The students concluded the workshop with the note of thanks to Kapil Sibal, and other key people present. They also thanked CSDMS for relentlessly working with them.

The afternoon session was a press conference, chaired by the honourable minister Shri Kapil Sibal, Brig. (Dr.) R. Sivakumar, and Shri M.P. Narayanan, President, CSDMS. The session had participation of representatives from all print and electronic media. A documentary was first shown to the particiapants, which was followed by the presentations of the students. A discussion on the future of Mapping the Neighbourhood programme followed the presentation. Shri Kapil Sibal expressed his views to consider changing the status of the project to an long-term programme and also to look into the possibility of extending the programme to 30,000 schools, as has been desired by the President of India.

On the second day, the students gave a presentation to Mr. Abhijit Sen, Member, Planning Commission, Government of India with some key people from CSDMS. The potential areas of growth for the project were discussed with him.

In the evening, presentation was given to the key industry people and general public, which included CEOs of GIS companies, GIS professionals, school principals, secretaries and joint secretaries of important government departments at Rock Garden, India International Centre, New Delhi.

The participants had different views on the programme but almost all of them agreed that the this is a good programme and it should be implemented in all the villages across India and should concentrate more on rural areas, as currently they do not have much information about their resources.

Mapping the Neighbourhood

This is a programme, being executed by Centre for Spatial Database Management and Solutions (CSDMS), a Noida (Uttar Pradesh) based NGO, and has been sponsored by the DST. The programme is being implemented in Hawalbagh development block of Almora district, Uttranchal, since September 2003. ( www.neighbourhood-mapping.org)