A specialized institution, Indian National GIS Organization, will be set up, probably within a year, to provide an independent view on progress of existing projects and the need for new projects. The idea of having a central GIS body consisting of nation-wide GIS assets and application services to provide inputs for better decision making was floated by the Plan panel, which has set up a committee of experts headed by secretary of earth sciences ministry, Shailesh Nayak, to prepare the framework of National GIS body to be set up in a public-private partnership mode. The body will help ministries such as environment, water resources, urban & rural development to integrate satellite- based technology with the infrastructure creation process. The GIS inputs will be valuable for long-term planning and will provide real time insight to the Centre before taking a decision. ...