At a time when India is taking bold steps to revive its economy through a series of reforms cutting across sectors, the importance of geospatial data and technology and their role in this process cannot be overlooked. Geospatial data which includes location information, is an integral part of the modern digital ecosystem and critical for unlocking economic, social and environmental opportunities for sustainable growth and development of the country.
India has 17 national-level geospatial policies and rules under six ministries/departments. And there is lack of clear guidelines on data sharing between various ministries and their departments. However, the Government of India (GoI) acknowledges that the availability of comprehensive, highly accurate, granular and constantly updated representation of geospatial data will significantly benefit diverse sectors of the economy and will significantly boost innovation in the country and greatly enhance the preparedness of the country for emergency response.
In this direction, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) today released “Guidelines for acquiring and producing Geospatial Data and Geospatial Data Services including Maps” that apply to acquisition and production of geospatial data and services, including surveying and mapping, allowing Indian private firms access to data – spatial accuracy of 1m for horizontal or planimetry and 3m for vertical or elevation, and areas not physically restricted – without prior approvals. Union Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, MoS, Dr Jitendra Singh, and Secretary, India DST, Ashutosh Sharma briefed the media about these guidelines.
What are the key points?
- Indian Entities, will be free to acquire, collect, generate, prepare, disseminate, store, share, publish, distribute, update, digitize and/or create geospatial data, including maps, of any spatial accuracy within the territory of India including underwater within its territorial waters by using any geospatial technology.
- Ground truthing/verification, access to Indian ground stations and augmentation services for real time positioning (Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS), etc) and their data shall be made available without any restrictions and with the ease of access to Indian Entities only.
- Terrestrial Mobile Mapping survey, Street View survey and surveying in Indian territorial waters shall be permitted only for Indian Entities irrespective of accuracy.
- Maps/Geospatial Data of spatial accuracy/value finer than the threshold value can only be created and/or owned by Indian Entities and must be stored and processed in India.
- Foreign companies and foreign owned or controlled Indian companies can license from Indian Entities digital Maps/Geospatial Data of spatial accuracy/value finer than the threshold value only for the purpose of serving their customers in India. Access to such Maps/Geospatial Data shall only be made available through APIs that do not allow Maps/Geospatial Data to pass through Licensee Company or its servers. Re-use or resale of such map data by licensees shall be prohibited.
- Digital Maps/Geospatial Data of spatial accuracy/value up to the threshold value can be uploaded to the cloud but those with accuracy finer than the threshold value shall only be stored and processed on a domestic cloud or on servers physically located within territory of India.
- There shall be no restriction on export of Maps/Geospatial Data of spatial accuracy/value up to the threshold value except for attributes in the negative lists. Department of Revenue, Government of India will make necessary amendments in GSR in this regard.
- All Geospatial Data produced using public funds, except the classified geospatial data collected by security/law enforcement agencies, shall be made easily accessible for scientific, economic and developmental purposes to all Indian Entities and without any restrictions on their use. Such access shall be given free of any charges to Government agencies and at fair and transparent pricing to others. For attributes in the negative lists, appropriate regulations will be laid down separately. The Government of India shall encourage crowd sourcing efforts to build Maps by allocating public funds towards these efforts as appropriate.
- The Survey of India (SoI) and other government agencies producing or owning Maps and Geospatial Data, shall take immediate measures to simplify procedures, revise/abolish various forms/licenses and use modern techniques such as cloud, open APIs and others to make its data accessible online in a useful format.
- For political Maps of India of any scale including national, state and other boundaries, SoI published maps or SoI digital boundary data are the standard to be used, which shall be made easily downloadable for free and their digital display and printing shall be permissible. Others may publish such maps that adhere to these standards.
- All citizens, companies, and organizations including Government agencies, producing Geospatial Data and information shall be encouraged to collaborate in mutually beneficial manner and work towards open-linked Geospatial Data. Government agencies will make all efforts to collaborate for acquiring Geospatial Data.
What does it mean?
Dr Harsh Vardhan also announced that an Inter-Ministerial Geospatial Data Promotion & Development Committee with representations from relevant departments will be formed, which will further the process of long awaited geospatial policy, meanwhile these guidelines will:
- Boost the morale and business of Indian geospatial industry as for Indian entities, complete deregulation with no prior approvals/security clearances is facilitated. The guidelines stresses that level playing field is needed for Indian private sector.
- Open new job opportunities and encourage startup ecosystem.
- Increased participation of pvt sector will augment growth of new tech, platforms & application of geospatial data contributing to country’s progress.
- National development projects such as Svamitva Scheme will get an impetus and will be completed on time.
- Data availability and modern mapping technologies to Indian companies will help in achieving India’s policy aim of Atmanirbhar Bharat and the vision for a five trillion-dollar economy.
- India presently relies heavily on foreign resources for mapping technologies and services. These guidelines will spur domestic innovation and enable Indian companies to compete in the global mapping ecosystem by leveraging modern geospatial technologies.
- Locally available and locally relevant Maps and Geospatial Data would also help in improved planning and management of resources and better serve the specific needs of the Indian population.
- Blue economy in India, which includes fisheries, deep sea mining, and offshore oil and gas will get a boost.
- India to pole-vault into the group of nations that uses modern technology with ease for economic growth.
- Encourage data/information sharing supported by public funds to avoid data duplicity.
- Farmers will also be benefited by leveraging the potential of geospatial & remote sensing data. Democratizing data will enable the rise of new technologies & platforms that will drive efficiencies in agriculture and allied sectors.
