At the India Water Portal, we have received several enquiries from users, regarding sourcing topographical (topo) maps, an important aid in taking up work on water on the ground.
While the Survey of India (SoI) Map Transaction Registry (http://www.surveyofindia.gov.in/MTR/soivector/soi/login.htm) promises that, "Registered users can purchase Digital data (both Raster and Vector Format) of all SOI maps and Paper map of any scale", in practice however, it appears from the experience of individual users, that the response from the Survey of India main office in Dehradun, even after consistent follow up to any order or enquiry for maps by phone/email/fax, is extremely poor/non-existent.
SoI's regional offices at state capitals (http://www.surveyofindia.gov.in/Organization.html) are also supposed to stock these maps. However even here, only a visit to their office helps in getting any response, and they too have only limited supply and of only some maps (the others are either out of print or not available), and ask users to get in touch again with the Dehradun main office. Also, maps of 1:25000 scale have the most detail and hence are the most useful, however these are the most difficult to find, and only supply of 1:50000 or 1:250000 scale seem available, if at all.
In this context, we seek help on the following:
- Any successful experiences in being able to source topo maps (in both digital / print form) from the SoI. What is the best way to go about this? How can the out of print / not available maps be sourced from the regional/main offices
- Considering the importance and great usefulness of topo maps, should not they (apart from maps of restricted areas) be put online free for use by the public (like Google Earth/Maps has done), just as the rationale for IMD to be putting up Met Data for public use. Will a collective campaign from users, which led to IMD releasing the last 5 years data, similarly work here?
- Are there any online or other print/digital sources for topo maps (One such source of historical topo maps we have come across is here: https://www.indiawaterportal.org/node/6224), which are available free or easily to the public without much hassle? Can Google Maps be tweaked and used in any way, for this purpose?