River-linking hits snag, official holds back map

It is a hurdle no one visualised in the way of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s dream river-linking project. When former Union pow...

It is a hurdle no one visualised in the way of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s dream river-linking project. When former Union power minister Suresh Prabhu, chairman of the task force, approached the Surveyor General of India (SOI) for topography maps, he was told that the maps were secret and he would have to get clearance from the Ministry of Defence.

Prabhu met Defence Minister George Fernandes, who called a meeting of officials from the Defence Ministry, Department of Science and Technology (DST), ISRO and SOI on May 2. The presentations showed that the information denied was easily available for sale across the world.

Upset with the secrecy surrounding the mapping policy, Fernandes asked for a review and sought a fresh policy draft to make public this information.

Things went on well until Prabhu, after getting his maps, decided to post them on a website in a bid to ensure transparency in the project. It was then that the Additional Surveyor General of India, Major General B C Roy, decided to throw a spanner in the works.

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He had reason to be upset: a ‘‘very junior officer’’, P Nag, had been appointed his boss. He said the appointment of the junior officer had led to problems — corruption and the clearance for releasing the maps — though he didn’t explain how.

In a letter to Defence Secretary Ajay Prasad on August 4, Roy said the ‘‘government approval for open publication on the new series of Topo maps on WGS-84 system for public use again’’ is ‘‘with ulterior motive of corruption.’’ He cited eight reasons why the same maps, requested by Prabhu and cleared ‘‘in principle’’ by Fernandes, must not be made public.

ROY’S POINTS

• National security is at risk.
• Since GPS is based on the WGS84, latest weaponry systems depend heavily on accurate coordinates provided by the GPS.
• The WGS84 remains exclusively for Defence use

DST’S COUNTER-POINTS
• With the advent of GPS, world is moving towards universal systems.
• Military would continue to use maps based on the Everest datum (a system exclusive to the sub-continent) and far more accurate than WGS84.
• Maps are already available to all our adversaries

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Roy said it would ‘‘seriously jeopardize the security of our country especially in the light of ongoing tensions with neighbouring countries like, Pakistan/China etc.’’

When contacted at his residence in Dehra Dun, Roy said: ‘‘I am not supposed to comment.’’

The Defence Ministry wrote back to the DST about Roy’s concerns. The DST found Roy’s objections ‘‘relied on half-baked, half-digested information which he does not have the technical, scientific knowledge to analyse or interpret.’’

It pointed out that a visit to the ‘‘USGS or NIMA website (official US mapping agencies) would have revealed to him the differences in the approach of developed countries’’ in making this data ‘‘freely available and widely accessible.’’

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M Gopalakrishnan, coordinator of the River Inter-linking Task Force, says that such views ‘‘would make us a laughing stock.’’

‘‘I think we are out of date and the world is moving ahead of us. People can simply download this information from the Internet,’’ he says.