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Context

• India’s geospatial economy is expected to cross Rs 63,000 crore by 2025 at a growth rate of 12.8% and to provide employment to more than 10 lakh people mainly through Geospatial Start-Ups. This was stated here today by Union Minister for Science and Technology and Ministry of Earth Sciences, Dr Jitendra Singh while addressing the Second United Nations World Geospatial Information Congress (UN-WGIC) 2022.

 

What is geo-spatial data?

• Geospatial data is data about objects, events, or phenomenathat have a location on the surface of the earth.
• The location may be static in the short-term, like the location of a road, an earthquake event, malnutrition among children, or dynamic like a moving vehicle or pedestrian, the spread of an infectious disease.
• Geospatial data combines location information, attribute information(the characteristics of the object, event, or phenomena concerned), and often also temporal information or the time at which the location and attributes exist.
• Geo-spatial data usually involves information of public interestsuch as roads, localities, rail lines, water bodies, and public amenities.

 

What was the previous policy on geo-spatial data?

• There were strict restrictions on the collection, storage, use, sale, dissemination of geo-spatial data and mapping under the current regime.
• The policy had not been renewed in decadesand has been driven by internal as well as external security concerns.
• The sector was dominated by the Indian government as well as government-run agenciessuch as the Survey of India and private companies need to navigate a system of permissions from different departments of the government (depending on the kind of data to be created) as well as the defence and Home Ministries, to be able to collect, create or disseminate geo-spatial data.
• GIS mapping was also rudimentary, with the government investing heavily in it after the Kargil warhighlighted the dependence on foreign data and the need for indigenous sources of data.

 

The government has deregulated geo-spatial data

• This system of acquiring licenses or permission, and the red tape involved, can take months, delaying projects, especially those that are in mission mode – for both Indian companies as well as government agencies.
• The deregulation eliminates the requirement of permissions as well as scrutiny, even for security concerns.
• Indian companies now can self-attest, conforming to government guidelineswithout actually having to be monitored by a government agency- these guidelines therefore place a great deal of trust in Indian entities.
• There is also a huge lack of data in the country which impedes planning for infrastructure, development and businesses which are data-based. Themapping of the entire country, that too with high accuracy, by the Indian government alone could take decades.
• The government therefore felt an urgent need to incentivise the geo-spatial sectorfor Indian companies and increased investment from private players in the sector.
• There has also been a global push for open access to geo-spatial as it affects the lives of ordinary citizens, and the new guidelines has ensured such an open access,with the exception of sensitive defence or security-related data.

 

Significance

• By liberalising the system, the government will ensure more players in the field, competitiveness of Indian companies in the global market, and more accurate data available to both the government to formulate plans and administer, but also for individual Indians.
• Startups and businesses can now also use this data in setting up their concerns, especially in the sector of e-commerce or geo-spatial based apps – which in turn will increase employment in these sectors.
• Indian companies will be able to develop indigenous apps, for example an Indian version of google maps.
• There is also likely to be an increase in public-private partnershipswith the opening of this sector with data collection companies working with the Indian government on various sectoral projects.
• The government also expects an increase in investment in the geo-spatial sector by companies, and also an increase in export of data to foreign companies and countries, which in turn will boost the economy.

 

The recent United Nations World Geospatial Information Congress (UN-WGIC) 2022

Inauguration

• Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the United Nations World Geospatial Congress (UNWGIC) 2022 in Hyderabad.

 

Host and Organizer

• The United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) convened the conference on UNWGIC 2022 .
• It was organised by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
• It was hosted by the ministry of science and technology of the government of India.

 

Goal

• The goal of this year's UNWGIC is to promote a broad dialogue on global geospatial information management with all relevant governments, non-governmental organisations, academia, and the private sector.

 

Theme

• The theme of UNWGIC 2022 is 'Geo-Enabling the Global Village: No one should be left behind'. This focuses on building a community for human data and geography against the three pillars of sustainable development for a shared future and a better world, leaving no one behind within an inclusive and equitable global society.

Broader Objective

• The move aims to provide high-quality and trustworthy geospatial data to support global and national policy agendas.
• It also stresses international cooperation and coordination in the development of human data linked to geography.
• It promotes societal development and well-being, addresses environmental and climate challenges, and embraces digital transformation and technological advancement.

 

Applications of Geospatial Technology

• Geospatial technology can be used to create intelligent maps and models which help to collect geographically referenced data.
• Intelligent maps and models can be created using geospatial technology. It can be used to reveal spatial patterns hidden in large amounts of data that are complex to access collectively through mapping.
• The scope of geospatial data use is vast: it embraces every sphere or industry where geographical position matters. The list includes geography proper, ecology, tourism, marine sciences, agriculture, forestry, marketing and advertising, military forces, navy, aircraft, law enforcement, logistics and transportation, astronomy, demography, healthcare, meteorology, and many others.

 

Here are some typical examples of how geospatial technology is applied:

• Tracking goods and ensuring their quality.
• Identifying location and time of arrival, route making, and navigation.
• Referring weather forecasts to particular territories.
• Detecting forest fires and deforestation & preventing large-scale wildfires ( example: satellite monitoring of forest fires and deforestation).
• Assessing vegetation state on a selected terrain.
• Healthcare. Monitoring areas of epidemic outbreaks.
• Tracing species populations in certain areas, preventing and addressing calamities.
• Marketing and advertising. Targeting ads to relevant regions.
• Real estate. Visualizing and analyzing real estate objects remotely.
• Managing risks in questioned areas (e.g., via historical georeferenced data analysis).

 

Use of Geo enabled Technology amid Covid-19 The recent Covid-19 pandemic management is a remarkable example where geo-enabled technology was used to develop a health service app, which helped in identifying containment zones, aided in monitoring citizen movement, administrating vaccines and ensuring social distancing. Other geo-enabled technologies helped in managing activities like sanitizing hotspots, establishing telemedicine facilities for remote health care and diagnosis, and analysing infrastructure availability to address the health crisis.

 

Future of Geospatial technologies

• Geospatial technologies enhance the performance of artificial intelligence and smart machinery in multiple spheres and agriculture in particular. Remotely controlled equipment completes numerous tasks via GPS and digital dashboards. Robots and smart machinery in the fields seem futuristic no longer, and it is not the limit.
• Expansion and new application solutions are expected in biosecurity, education, construction, engineering, ecology, food supplies, precision agriculture, financial market, statistics, transportation, to mention a few.
• Basically, geospatial data enhances performance in each sphere, outlining specific needs or issues in selected regions. Example: Employment of GPS in the automobile and aircraft industries enables frequent use of driverless vehicles and UAVs as a matter of fact.
• New achievements in this branch mean the corresponding upgrade of related industries. So, the improvement process will be ensuring even greater precision, credibility, performance, quality, and security.

 

India’s efforts in this direction

• The government, industry, researchers, academia, and civil society are coming together to establish quality geospatial ecosystem to build key solutions.
• The Government of India released the new geospatial data guidelines in 2021, where it acknowledged the benefits of availability of comprehensive, highly accurate, granular and constantly updated representation of Geospatial Data in diverse sectors of the economy
• National organizations like Survey of India, Geological Survey of India, National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organization (NATMO), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and National Informatics Centre implemented several GIS-based pilot projects across a range of domains like waste resource management, forestry, urban planning, etc. to demonstrate the applications of Geospatial Technology.
• To meet the growing needs of skilled geospatial manpower, several universities introduced Geospatial Science and Technology based courses to build human resource capacity and to develop the availability of trained Geospatial manpower.

Final Thoughts

• Democratization of Indian geospatial ecosystem will spur domestic innovation and enable Indian companies to compete in the global mapping ecosystem by leveraging modern geospatial technologies and realising the dream of "Atmanirbhar Bharat" or “Self-sufficient India” fully.

https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetailm.aspx?PRID=1866812#:~:text=by%20PIB%20Delhi-,India's%20geospatial%20economy%20is%20expected%20to%20cross%20Rs%2063%2C000%20crore,mainly%20through%20Geospatial%20Start%2DUps.