Urban Studies

India is a vibrant and culturally diverse country with more than 3600 heritage sites and monuments of national importance, of  which  36 are recognized as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. These heritage sites and monuments are precious and non-renewable resources which need to be conserved, protected and  monitored. Conventional techniques along with emerging  geospatial techniques are required to prepare databases and action plans to manage them effectively and efficiently in light of rapid urbanisation.

NRSC has taken up a major initiative under a national project titled ‘Site Management and Inventory of Heritage Centres’ (SMARAC) in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, GoI on the systemic inventory and preparation of site management plans for nationally important monuments/ sites in the country. SMARAC is implemented in collaboration with ASI and the National Monument Authority (NMA), New Delhi.

A on-line decision support system (DSS) has been developed to enhance the operation efficiency of augmenting inventory, Site Management Plan preparation and other scientific activities of ASI and other stakeholders. The scope of DSS is also for on-line no objection certificate (NOC) processing for NMA which involves the development of two mobile apps, namely SMARAC-G2G and SMARAC CITIZEN, an auto geo-processing system and a web application for faster processing of NOC requests from citizens. SMARAC - CITIZEN app is operationally used by some local planning authorities like the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) and Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation (GMMC) for processing NOC applications on-line within a stipulated time.