Historic Buddhist sites across eight south-east Asian nations will be mapped out and compiled into an atlas to boost tourism potential, an official said. In accordance with the Indo-Thai initiative, the National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organisation (NATMO) is scheduled to complete the mapping project in two-to-three years spanning a plethora of Buddhist sites in countries like Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Indonesia, India and Thailand.
The mapping would be done with the help of remote sensing data available and through various facts and figures available in the cultural texts and records of various countries. The Department of Science and Technology-funded project will take into account remote sensing data through images from Cartosat, which are earth observation satellites developed indigenously by India. It is primarily to boost tourism and promote peace… it unifies the Buddhist sites in south-east Asia. India has around 25 to 30 sites relevant to Buddhism which will all come under the project.