Case Study: India Gas Company Manages GIS, Gujarat, India

The ancient region of Gujarat reveals the history of India. In the past 3,000 years the Gujarat region has been inhabited by Asians, Greeks, Romans, and the British. Today, the state of Gujarat occupies the northern extremity of the western seaboard of India. A journey through Gujarat reveals a religious, cultural, and historical panorama. The state with the longest coastline (1,290 km) in the country is renowned for its holy temples, historic capitals, and immense architectural structures. Industry is booming with a registered 20,050 working factories.

Gujarat Gas Company Ltd. (GGCL) is the largest private sector gas distribution company in India. GGCL’s pipelines spread over more than 1,800 kilometers. The company is a pioneer in the private distribution of natural gas in India through the establishment of an independent network of pipelines to industrial, commercial, and domestic customers in three cities of southern Gujarat, namely Surat, Ankleshwar, and Bharuch.

GGCL is implementing GIS in its engineering, operations, planning, and other functions that require the examination of geographic data and the management and dissemination of this data throughout the company. The basic objective is to create a complete GIS-based asset management system that fulfills the aforesaid objectives.

GGCL engaged the team of NIIT-GIS Ltd. (ESRI India) to implement a GIS-based asset management solution for its natural gas distribution system. The project involves managing the migration of legacy data to the Oracle database with ArcSDE coupled to Miner & Miner’s ArcFM 8.3 software applications. Using a proven integration approach, the team is developing the key interfaces to legacy systems such as GGCL’s customer database. To do this, the gas company is completing a migration plan that includes the following steps:

         Complete a requirements analysis.

         Create a software requirements specification list.

         Perform data modeling and design.

         Develop databases.

         Customize tools and extensions.

         Execute configuration and deployment.

The new GIS supports data sharing across different departments within the company. It reduces redundancy of data and enables decision making analysis. GIS significantly improves emergency response time.