India: The Finance Minister of the newly formed NDA government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today presented the Union Budget for the fiscal year 2014–15. While several economists and experts are at large discussing the nuances of the budget, here are few quick points from the budget that gives a glimpse of how it will impact the geospatial industry:
Smart Cities
- A sum of Rs 7,060 crore is provided in the current fiscal for the ‘100 Smart Cities’ project. In May, the new Urban Development and Housing and Poverty Alleviation Minister (HUPA) Venkaiah Naidu had told media that India aims to build 100 smart cities by 2020.
- Master planning of three new smart cities in the Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor region, viz., Ponneri in Tamil Nadu, Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and Tumkur in Karnataka will be completed in this fiscal year.
- Development of industrial corridors with emphasis on Smart Cities linked to transport connectivity to spur growth in manufacturing and urbanisation will be accelerated.
Infrastructure
- Amritsar Kolkata Industrial master planning to be completed expeditiously.
- An investment of an amount of Rs 37,880 crore in NHAI and State Roads is proposed which includes Rs 3000 crores for the North East.
- Target of NH construction of 8500 km will be achieved in current financial year
- Vision of the Government is that 500 urban habitations to be provided support for renewal of infrastructure and services in next 10 years through PPPs.
- 100 crore provided for Metro Projects in Lucknow and Ahemdabad.
- Scheme for development of new airports in Tier I and Tier II Cities to be launched.
- For inland navigation, project on Ganges called “Jal Marg Vikas” will be developed between Allahabad and Haldia. In addition, Rs 100 crore has been provided for detailed project reports for linking of rivers of India.
Space
- Several major space missions planned for 2014-15. Although the details of the missions planned were not shared, In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Jitendra Singh — who is also Minister for Earth sciences, department of atomic energy and department of space said that India has earned around 40 million euros launching 15 foreign satellites from 2011 till date. Recently, India’s PSLV launcher was used to send French earth observation satellite SPOT 7. According to reports, several other countries are now looking at India as a potential satellite launch partner.
PDS
- Restructuring FCI, reducing transportation and distribution losses and efficacy of Public Distribution System (PDS) to be taken up on priority. In May, the government had announced plans to track supplies for PDS using GPS technology.
Others
- Crisis Management Centres in all the districts of NCT of Delhi this year government and private hospitals.
- Pan India programme “Digital India” to with an outlay of Rs 500 crore to be launched.
Railway Budget
The Railway Budget, which was recently released too mentioned G-tech. while presenting the Budget, Railway Minister D. V. Sadananda Gowda said that Indian Railways holds vast land assets which need to be digitised and mapped using GIS for better management and usage.Railway Minister DV Sadananda Gowda said Indian Railways holds vast land assets which need to be digitised and mapped using GIS for better management and usage. In addition, the first dedicated bullet train project will be launched on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route for which many feasibility studies have been conducted. The minister proposed an outlay of Rs 100 crore for infrastructure development for the projects. He also said that he aims to make India the largest freight carrier of the world.Over all, both the budget have given a glimpse of what the government intends to do. However, the industry reaction is yet to emerge.
Source: Our correspondent
