By Kingsley Adegboye

After three failed attempts to establish its own digital mapping and geographical information system (GIS) based-station, the Lagos State Government will next Monday commission the multi-billion naira mapping project.

The project which was launched two years ago by the state government, has had three stakeholders’ meetings at different periods to enable Lagos residents know the progress of the project that had 70 and 30 per cent involvement of local and foreign consultants respectively.

The Special Adviser to Governor Babatunde Fashola on Digital Mapping and GIS Project, Surv. Morudeen Durowoju who spoke on the proposed commissioning, said he promised to deliver the project in two years, said the task has been achieved. .

Describing GIS as an engine room that propels other variants, the immediate past Surveyor-General of Lagos State, said GIS is a modern way of managing geographic and land related resources in order to provide integrated decision support systems to policy makers. He pointed out that the federal and state governments have commenced the process of using GIS technology to aid decision making and increasing revenue generation for the management of land related resources.

The Special Adviser explained that Lagos State plans to use GIS technology to support development programmes such as tourism promotion, boundary resolution, land management and administration and population and housing census operation. Others include: planning of urban and rural settlements, crime control, transportation, flood and erosion, mineral resources development, agricultural and communication development.

“This will assist the state to collect accurate, timely, complete, reliable and consistent information. It will provide for adequate agency management reporting, facilitate the increase of revenue generation and aid proper and efficient sustainable planning of Lagos mega city,” he said.

The state government will recover its investment through the development and sales of customized e-commerce GIS products such as orthophotos, digital maps, title documents, digital aerial survey data, geophysical data and others to the users through the web.

‘The GIS system will be able to identify and document houses or properties with or without legal title or building plan approval. Therefore, with the applications of the GIS technology, Lagos state will be able to ascertain that all land transactions in the state are fully documented with fool-proof system. Members of the public can access the services of the enterprises GIS at the GIS Centre located at Office of the Surveyor-General or through the internet 24 hours a day and seven days a week’, Dorowoju stated.