The digital asset accounting systems, made as electronic maps, open up huge opportunities for AHs, told Kateryna Rieznikova, head of technical department at the BlomInfo-Ukraine Company, to www.decentralization.ua

By Dmytro Synyak

The peculiar feature of the Local System Development Forum “Partnership for Sustainable Development of Hromadas: Enhancing Local Economic Capacity", held recently in Kharkiv and organised by the USAID “Agrarian Village Development” Project, was the presentation of unusual maps. The main resource of AHs, which is the land, is not only carefully recorded, but also grouped and classified according to its intended purpose. They show all "regimen" objects: from electric transmission lines to cattle mounds and spontaneous landfills. Besides, all economic roads, forest bands (215 hectares), irrigation and drainage lands, as well as all houses of hromada residents and even their names and age are marked. Kateryna Rieznikova, head of the technical department at BlomInfo-Ukraine, said that, for example, having a picture of the place for residence of all children in the hromada it is possible to easily organise the system of transporting these children to schools. It is BlomInfo-Ukraine, which implements digital asset accounting systems of hromadas (or, more simply, electronic maps) at the request of “Agrarian Village Development”. The www.decentralisation.gov.ua asked Mrs. Kateryna about the features of these maps.

What do the electronic maps consist of and what opportunities do they open to hromadas?

- The special portals have been created for hromadas reflecting the current state of land use, all boundaries of land plots, etc.

How can these maps be useful for a hromada?

- A hromada has all the information on the modern actual state of land use. According to the calculations made by experts, after proper accounting, registration and taxation of resources hromada’s budget has to increase by 30 - 40%. Besides, territories to satisfy social needs of the hromada residents will be found. The hromada will be able to form its own perspective development vector based on modern land use.

You said you discovered forest areas being not subject to any forestry enterprise. How did they occur and didn't hromada known about them?

- From 1 January this year the forest bands should have gone under jurisdiction of local self-government authorities. But this transition was only formal. Hromadas do not understand their status and opportunities as for these lands. The state was not interested in these forest areas in the early 1990's, but now they can become a real Klondike for hromadas.

But it is necessary to prepare appropriate documents for these “gray zones” to become legal hromada ownership.

- If a hromada has such a map, it has made 90% of work for such documents' registration. The maps have all necessary information, such as land shapes, theirs boundaries, coordinates and area.

Within your work, it is possible to create so-called targeted register. It means that each building can be pinned with any necessary information on its residents. But this is huge amount of work …

- Actually, hromadas should do this work by just passing data to us. We have developed special templates and forms that are given to local authorities to be filled in. Then these templates and forms are simply uploaded to the general map.

You brought huge monitors to the Forum. Is it impossible to understand small maps without them?

- No, big monitors are needed just in a large room. The land manager will find any necessary information on an ordinary monitor without any problems.The map is uploaded in the Internet, so all work is done through a special geoportal. The hromada is working with databases related to this geoportal. It can make any changes in databases that are subsequently displayed on the general map.

If everything is in free access, can we talk about personal data protection? Hromada residents may not want somebody see which land plots they own and where they live, etc.

- By its own desire, a hromada may close any information from third-parties. It is located on our separate server. Besides, the map opens not from the hromada website, but via a special link that is almost impossible to find without having the appropriate link. In general, this information is aimed for a narrow circle of specialists working in local self-government.

How much does it cost to create a map?

- About UAH 600.000 for an average hromada with an area of 300 square kilometres. The price depends a lot on hromada's area and quantity of settlements, as well as a scope of workload a hromada can do itself.

Are hromadas interested in creating these maps after seeing the success of maps of the pilot Kiptivska and Palanska AHs?

- There is an interest, in general, however, there are not so many real orders. It is partially connected with legislative restrictions that stop heads of hromadas.

Two hromadas out of 900 – not many.

- Some heads of hromadas learn that information on resources of their AHs will be in the Internet, in an open access, and give up cooperation. 

Can electronic maps protect investors?

Due to them the investor receives confidence in future. After all, areas rented by investors will have their own cadastral number, owner’s data and target appointment, etc.

What do investors say about such maps?

- We are guiding hromadas to search through our internal maps for such an investor, who is living in this hromada.

How is it possible to update the electronic maps? As hromada’s assets are changing all the time ...

- The main feature of the map is an opportunity to update it. Tha map is updated as soon as data bases are updated. Land managers know how to do it. The system created by them is a live mechanism that needs to be renewed and continuously maintained.

How can one get consultations on work with maps?

- We are planning to run a data centre for hromadas that will provide services in keeping data, developing various servers, publishing data on the geoportal, making the previous processing and bringing data to a unified coordinate system, vectorising and filling semantic information. We will also have a hot line that will enable hromadas to receive technical consultations.

 

The USAID "Support to Agrarian and Village Development” Project is being implemented by the Eastern Europe Fund in partnership with the BlomInform-Ukraine Company, DESPRO and the Kyiv School of Economics.

The full version is available in Ukrainian – please click HERE