Ismira Lutfia – The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed the geospatial bill into law, a quarter of a century after it was conceived and numerous name changes later.

Asep Karsidi, head of the National Coordinating Agency for Surveys and Mapping (Bakosurtanal), welcomed its passage as an opportunity to finally develop a standardized reference for the country's territorial management and disaster mitigation planning.

"This law will be the single national reference for basic geospatial information and will be integrated with other thematic information compiled by government agencies such as the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry or regional administrations," he said after House Commission VII, which oversees research and technology issues, passed the bill.

The law, he said, will also regulate basic information on the country's natural resources, both below and above ground, to improve their management for the benefit of the country and its people.

First drafted in 1985 as the surveying and mapping bill, it became the national geographic information bill in the 1990s and then the national spatial information management bill in 2007.

By 2002, it had been extensively trimmed to ensure it would not overlap with existing laws, but failed to make it onto the House's list of priority legislation. In 2009, it finally made it onto the list for expected passage in 2010, but with a backlog of bills ahead of it, was delayed once again.

Geospatial information, most commonly in the form of maps, details the most prominent features of an area. The information provides a reference point for development, transportation and infrastructure projects.

It is expected that government agencies and private institutions will manage their own thematic geospatial information in fields such as agriculture, disaster mitigation, forest management and housing development based on the basic reference provided by the law and overseen by a planned geospatial information agency.

Asep said the planned agency would be set up within two years, based on the existing Bakosurtanal. The law, he added, gives the agency a three-year transition period to compile all the existing thematic maps drafted by other agencies into a single harmonized national map.

"It will be a laborious process, considering Indonesia's large and sprawling territory, but after that, there will be no more overlapping information," Asep said.