As a part of its 250 years completion celebrations, Survey of India has proposed to re-measure the height of Mount Everest during the year 2017. India was the first country under Sir George Everest’s leadership as ‘Surveyor General of India’ to have declared the height of Mount Everest and establish it as the highest peak in the world in the year 1855. Subsequently, India once again carried out the exercise and declared the height of Mount Everest in the year 1956. After the Gorkha Earth Quake in the year 2015,various doubts were raised by the scientific community. In response to this, the Survey of India proposed re-measuring the height of Mount Everest as an ‘Indo-Nepal Joint Scientific Exercise’ along with Survey department of Nepal. The proposal has been forwarded to Nepal through diplomatic channels and the expedition will start after the formal concurrence of Government of Nepal is received.
Discussions and deliberations of all stakeholders of Survey of India products and services focussed on users’ perspective on Geospatial Policy Framework in India during the panel discussions.
The Secretary, Department of Science & Technology, Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, said that the panel discussions and the opinion and suggestions from all the stakeholders assembled in the forum would facilitate the inclusion of wider spectrum considering present day technology scenario and developmental needs and challenges in the country, and will prove to be very useful inputs for shaping the geospatial policy paradigm in the country.
Topographic maps or Open Series Maps (OSM) containing natural and man-made geographical features including terrain or topography are prepared by the SoI since its inception in 1767 and is in conformity with the National Map Policy-2005. These OSM maps have been made available for free download from “nakshe” web portal in pdf format on 1:50,000 scale through Aaadhar enabled user authentication process, in line with Digital India programme of the Government of India.
Notably, Survey of India, the principal mapping agency of the country is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year. Origin of the Survey of India is traced back to Year 1767. It is the oldest scientific department in India and one of the oldest survey establishments in the world.
