Opening up geospatial sector to usher in an era of innovation

Indian government's move to liberate the collection, generation, and storage of geospatial data of the country for domestic entities is a step in the right direction. It opens up myriad of opportunities for location-based services such as e-commerce, logistics, and urban transport among others. Also, precision agriculture will get a boost as geospatial data can be easily collected and put to use for increasing agricultural productivity. According to government estimates, the domestic geospatial market is pegged at Rs 1 lakh crore by 2030 with an employment potential of around 22 lakh people.

Currently, even central institutions like the Survey of India have to get permission from the Ministry of Defence & Home, the Intelligence Bureau, and other such agencies for receiving the geospatial data. With the changed norm, not only central agencies but also domestic companies will be able to receive geospatial data without any need for permission. This will foster innovation in various areas. Mobility data, weather patterns, and other such statistical information can be analysed to get better insights.

Especially, this is shot in the arms of the startup ecosystem in the county. There are many startups that are providing geospatial-based analytics services to both public and private sector players. Easier acquisition of geospatial data will help in the creation of many innovative products for various sectors. For example, applications of GIS (Geographic Information System) can further enhance productivity in agriculture through customised cultivation practices. Similarly, mining and water conservation efforts will get fillip through GIS. GIS data is already being used by infrastructure sectors such as road, port, and other construction segments to gauge the progress of projects, which will be more robust through various analytics-based services.

Even insurance, retail, banking sectors are likely to see more opportunities through the use of location-based analytics. The easing of norms may also reduce dependency on Google Maps, which is being widely used in India for various location-based services. Indian startups, if they tie-up with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), will have access to the latter's huge database and technology. This augurs well for creating large domestic companies with various geospatial services.

At a time when geospatial information on India is commonly available by many global players, it was a wise move to open up the sector to Indian players with certain restrictions. The regulation also says that only Indian entities can own and store geospatial data finer than 1-metre horizontally and 3-metre vertically. Foreign entities, however, only can licence such fine data without owning them. This is a wise move given the sensitivities attached to Indian geospatial data with respect to security purposes. As India liberalises many sectors to ward off the impact of the ongoing Covid pandemic, easing of norms in the geospatial sector is likely to give a leg up to the domestic economy.