B A Ansari

34 INTERVIEW Map Makers by Generations

The journey of Roter company intertwined with different wars of the 20th century. It conceived and flourished during different wars, with each generation adding and resorting to new technologies to their businesses, helping the country update its surveying technology. Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari, 85, a second-generation entrepreneur, discussed its indispensable role in modernizing India's survey and mapping sector with Geospatial Artha. By Jitendra Choubey

Voyage and wars

Our journey started at the fag-end of World War-I, and business boomed during World War II. My father, Bashir Ahmad Ansari, mastered the art of nickel-chrome plating technique at an early age. The British brought a batch of Italian prisoners of World War-I and jailed them near Roorkee. They use to come out of the camps on weekends and get their cigar, lighters, chains & watches chrome plated. This polished his plating skills, and made some good money by providing services to the POWs. Shortly after, my father was invited to work at an irrigation workshop known as "Iron Foundry and Canal workshop-I", Roorkee. At the workshop, old equipment used for maintenance of the Ganga Canal – one of the costliest man-made structures – were repaired. He learnt how to repair and service Drawing, Surveying and Mathematical instruments. That piqued his interest in Mapping & Drawing equipment such Divider, Pencil compass and Drawing pen. After sometimes he left the foundry unit and opened his workshop at home. Later, he started supplying equipment to various stationery shops of different parts of the country. In 1936, we registered a partnership company named as B.A. A. & Sons.

Credit: Roter

Embargo on imports & exports

During World War II, there was a ban on exports and imports, and it became tedious for the Survey of India to continue its mapping work. In search of precise equipment, a few British engineers landed at our home workshop, located on the outskirts of Roorkee town. They examined all the equipment and were impressed with its level of precision. Thereafter, we entered into a formal deal with the Survey of India. Post Partition, we explored new business avenues in Mumbai and Delhi.

First factory and heights it scaled

In 1957, we set up our first factory to meet the rising demand. As a second-generation, I formally joined this enterprise. We hired qualified engineers and started manufacturing Drafting Machines; Mini-Drafters for drawing different lines such as horizontal, verticle, inclined, parallels, perpendiculars; Planimeters to measure irregular shapes; Sextant for determining angles. Besides, I came up with an instrument box product, branded as BASLER that created a storm in the market and made us market leader in the mapping and surveying instruments market. We made a range of instrument boxes. A box offered a complete choice of products related to surveying and mapping. It was made up of a mixture of wood and plastic. At that time, Kolkata-based British company, Kilburn, was entrusted with marketing and sales of our products nationally. Since then, demand of products shot up and I could finally buy a car in the 1960s.

Recognition from PM

The Prime Minister's office sent a Letter of Appreciation to my father recognizing his contribu-

tion to the 1965 war. We supplied our surveying equipment for tactical mapping of the war zone. Besides, he was a philanthropist, social worker, president of the city Congress, Municipal Board member, etc.

Coinage of Roter

In 1978, we renamed our company as Roter, where one could get a solution for queries related to surveying and mapping. The name was derived from Rotating Compass, a drawing instrument which used to make different sizes of circles. Roter Group is a unique company, offering surveying solutions and services through its own portfolio and partner network.

Dawn of new sun (son)

When my son joined our business in the early 1990s, he introduced modern surveying instruments such as Digital Theodolite, Electronic Distance Meter (EDM), Opto-electronics systems, GNSS, LiDAR, Surveillance System, etc along with strong software solutions for various ground applications.

When the Directorate of Technical Education kicked off the modernization plan for Polytechnics, we helped supply modern surveying system, including the EDM, Theodolite EDM, and software for data processing. We also helped in the modernization of the Central Water Commission. We supplied and installed required modern equipment and trained their staff of all 26 centers. After setting up our software development unit in Bengaluru, we start developing algorithms for all kinds of imported equipment from abroad. We entered the geospatial realm to design our solution to address Indian-specific challenges. Later, we engaged with the GoI in National Land Record Management Program in 1998, where we provided a solution to different state governments for the digitization of land records, which included supply of instruments, software, end-to-end data acquisition, and processing and map generation. In the meantime, we developed India's first Surveying integrated computer-aided design (CAD) software to get data directly from any branded instrument. Later, we also started offering solutions while using the latest technologies like GPS, GNSS, and LiDAR. We worked on some unique cases such as mapping of freshwater streams in the Shivalik Range of the Himalayas, Crocodile Mapping & Tiger Tracking for Wildlife Research Institute and Road Asset Management for MoRTH. We also came up with a rescue radar. The radar that syncs with live people heartbeat below 30 meters of earth and help save their lives timely. We have supplied it to the NDRF and the SDRF.

Leveraging drones

We are also helping the government in habitation land surveying under SVAMITVA project. We provided more than 300-long endurance drones – capable of staying in the air for 1.5 hours, covering up to a 5 sqkm area and producing a high-spatial level of resolution. We are building first internet of things (IoT) for the Ministry of Mines in collaboration with the CSIR lab, IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur and Coal India. We designed a FLP battery for a laser scanner with casing that got us India’s first DGMS Certificate (Director General of Mines Safety) for intrinsically safe underground flameproof scanners. We now can provide 3D maps in hazardous mines which were not possible till now, while doing crack detection, asset mapping, labour navigation etc. Now, we are only company providing complete solution with laser scanners to work in underground mines. We are also engaged with flagship project of the GOI – Namami Gange. We are providing technology to study the underwater bathymetry, depth of river floors (seabed topography) to know level of silt and plan accordingly to dredge or remove it. Also, we have launched intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance drone this year, streaming live from 30km.

Innovation at its best

The future of surveying is going to be autonomous. From cars to drones everything has to be fully autonomous. On the instrument side LiDAR will rule over traditional instrument as it gives more number of information in shorter period of time. The role of the government agency such as Survey of India will soon become irrelevant. After the introduction of the new geospatial policy of the GOI – which promotes innovation – Citizen Mapping will be the future. Every citizen will map, with the government agency relegated to a secondary role.

Credit: Roter The PMO sent a letter of appreciation to Ansari's father, recognizing his contribution to the 1965 war.