There are signs that the situation in India is ripening for such applications of the technology. Some data is becoming easier to access. Primary census data, for example, is available at http://censusindia.net. There is even a web-GIS implementation at http://www.censusindiamaps.net/ to complement this data. Also, initiatives mentioned earlier in this paper, despite valid criticisms about a continued top-down datacentric approach (for example, Georgiadou et al. 2005; Singh 2005) should make inroads into the accessibility of digital spatial data. In particular, the Government of India (GOI) has developed a Map Policy that is designed to make geo-referenced data easily available for civilian use and the GOI is developing a National Spatial Data Infrastructure that should support district level planning (see http:// nsdiindia.gov.in/). However, current adoption of the internet is still low in India compared to other Asian countries (100 million internet users or 8.5% of the population as of 2010, primarily dial up as opposed to broadband connections (IWS 2011)). It is important to keep in mind that the application of web-distributed GIS is subject to issues associated with uneven access to technology and data. Even if costs come down, the economically weaker sections of society, those most in need of capacity building and empowerment, would be the very last to have the economic and human capacity to access the technology. If such groups are important stakeholders in the planning or management issue at hand, then the use of web-based GIS for public engagement would be inappropriate. This application of GIS technology for public participation has potential to reach that segment of the population that has literacy, computer literacy, and access to computers and the internet only. If web-GIS is employed, careful thought should be given to what stakeholders may not be included in the process, and other means used to ensure their participation.