Every new society, new apartment or road that is mushrooming in the expanding city limits now finds its precise location in a digital map that is being updated each month.

The Vadodara-based Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Council, a network of medical emergency and city hospitals, in an effort to cut down the time taken during a rescue operation, has initiated digital mapping of the city, and is constantly updating it, so as to give precise locations to ambulances which rush to pick up patients/victims in the shortest possible time.
The EMS Council has appointed a team to monitor changes in the city and make necessary alterations in the map every month.

In place of the traditional method of locating a city address and the accompanying lapse of time likely, a constantly updated digital map is now coming to the aid of ambulance drivers, directing them to take precise turns, and informing them about every small lane and landmark.

The people manning the EMS Council control room refer to the digital map as soon as they receive an emergency call, and convey directions to get to the address to ambulance drivers equipped with wireless sets. The result: a year after the experiment, of the 67 calls the EMS Council received, 38 could be reached in record time due to the precise directions thanks to the digital map.

Digital mapping of the city was solely conceptualised by an EMS Council team and manual work of locating precise addresses was done by staff members of the EMS Council, followed by graphic digital imaging using Autocad software.

Though digital maps are available in state government organisations, these are generally confidential, said EMS officials. One reason why they came up with their own map, instead of relying on the Google Earth version of the same.

‘‘Vadodara’s map may be acessible on Google but it is very complicated and also not updated,’’ said Dr Subroto Das, member secretary, EMS Council, Vadodara. To keep the map updated, the EMS Council has employed staffers who keep updating city details to makes changes in the map if needed, Dr Das added.

The council employed more than 12 cyclists and scooterists to go around the city and locate every new society or landmark which had come up recently. The digital map of Vadodara is segmented into 29 zones. When an emergency call is received, the information about the location is availed by clicking on the specified area on the computer screen.

‘‘It is important to upgrade the map every month to provide quick medical services for emergencies,’’ Dr Das said. When the EMS Council control room receives an emergency call, the staff on duty get in touch with the nine (public and private) hospitals which have a tie-up with the council. After an ambulance from the hospital closest to the specified address sets out for the spot, the EMS council staff inform the other hospitals not to send their amblances.

‘‘Earlier, just used to dump a person who needed medical attention into an autorickshaw or any other vehicle available. Our aim is to provide quick medical services with paramedical staff,’’ said Sushmita Das, secretary of Lifeline Foundation for the EMS Council, Vadodara.

UP, close and personal with Bapu? Homing in on Mahatma’s principles and philosophy, Gujarat Vidyapith plans to set up Gandhi Study Centres in city’s minority schools so as to ‘revive’ the ‘lost’ Gandhian ideas.

Helping students connect with Gandhi will be school teachers who would head the centres. Vice-Chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapith, Sudarshan Iyengar, perceives opening of such centres a way to resurrect Gandhian ideology. “It’s an attempt to revive Gandhi in a city where the two communities —Hindus and Muslims— have been polarized. For Gandhi, neither Pan-Islamism nor Hindu fundamentalism, was a solution to the country’s problems. Although schools, wherein Gandhi study centres will be set up, have not been identified, such centres may come up in schools in Juhapura, Jamalpur and Rakhial. If successful, we may then replicate the project in other public and private schools. However, these schools will have to approach us in case they wish to open study centres,” he said.

The project is already on the go as the Shams High School in Rakhial, an Urdu medium school, has asked Vidyapith for copies of the Urdu translation of Hind Swaraj for its library.

Hind Swaraj, written by Gandhi in 1909, was translated into Urdu by the Swarajpeeth Trust, Delhi. Mushtaq Khan, trustee of the school says, “In today’s modernised world, the ideas of Gandhi have got lost. His ideas need to be talked about and discussed among students. Therefore, we requested translated copies of the book which we will receive shortly to start the centre.”

Once students are through with specific books on Gandhi, including his autobiography, as a part of the syllabus, they will sit for their final tests.

Lalubhai Rabari, exam co-ordinator at the Hindi Bhavan in Gujarat Vidyapith says, “Study centres will have Urdu, Hindi, English and Gujarati versions of Gandhi’s books. Students can, therefore, take exams in any language they are comfortable with. However, they’ll appear according to sections they are in, that is primary, secondary and higher secondary,” he said.

“While students of primary section will take the test called, Gandhi Jivan Jhankhi (A glimpse into Gandhi’s life), for students from the secondary section it will be called Gandhi Vichar Pravesh, while students from the higher secondary section will take the test titled, Gandhi Vichar Parichay,” he said.