Go on, make those maps

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  Go on, make those maps

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1. Liberalisation goes geo-spatial: In Feb 2021, India's Ministry of Science and Technology released new guidelines for the Geo-spatial sector in India. These deregulate the existing protocol and liberalise the sector to a more competitive field. 
2. Geo-spatial data: This is data about objects, events, or phenomena that 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, etc. It could also be dynamic like a moving vehicle or pedestrian, the spread of an infectious disease and the like. It 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. Recent years saw an increase in the use of geo-spatial data in daily life with various apps such as for food delivery, e-commerce and even weather apps.
3. Present policy: Govt. has imposed strict restrictions on the collection, storage, use, sale, and dissemination of geo-spatial data and mapping under the current regime. The outdated policy was not renewed in decades and has been driven by internal as well as external security concerns. The sector so far was  dominated by the Indian government as well as government-run agencies such as the Survey of India. Private companies needed mulitple permissions to be able to collect, create or disseminate geo-spatial data, including permissions from different government departments (depending on the kind of data to be created) as well as the defence and Home Ministries.
4. Why regulations: Geo-spatial data was initially conceptualised as a matter solely concerned with security, the prerogative of the defence forces and the government. The Kargil war highlighted the dependence on foreign data and the need for indigenous sources of data. With this, GIS mapping was also rudimentary, and the government invested heavily in it after the war.
5. Why open up now: The 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 would eliminate the requirement of permissions as well as scrutiny, even for security concerns. Indian companies can now self-attest, conforming to government guidelines without actually having to be monitored by a government agency. Some restrictions will remain: spatial accuracy of 1m for horizontal or planimetry and 3m for vertical or elevation — and sensitive and restricted areas will be regulated.
6. Sectors impacted: Agriculture, environment protection, power, water, transportation, communication, health (tracking of diseases, patients, hospitals etc) rely heavily on geo-spatial data. For mapping the entire country with high accuracy, the Indian government alone could take decades. So more private players will help. Also, as large amounts of geo-spatial data are also available on global platforms, there's no point in restricting anymore.
7. Impact: This liberalisation will help bring more players in the field, raise competitiveness of Indian companies in the global market, bring more accurate data for both the government (to formulate plans and administer) and individual Indians, help e-commerce sector, hopefully increase employment, help develop indigenous apps (an Indian version of Google maps), and so on.
8. ISRO boss: Isro chairman K Sivan, who was also part of the discussions, applauded this and felt that coupled with remote-sensing data, Indian private sector stands to gain.
9. Summary: If all these changes ultimately help create more employment, it would be an end well served.

Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

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