In News

New standards have come into force in India, with the goal of entirely deregulating the geospatial industry.

New Recommendations

• Geographical data will be made freely available to the public by the Department of Science and Technology, which will make the data available in the open public domain.
• Pre and post-approval certifications are not required for startups to demonstrate that they have followed all applicable rules and regulations. A self-declaration will be effective.
• The government will work to promote the most recent mapping technologies available.

Concerns

• A fundamental problem is a scarcity of highly trained workers throughout the whole pyramid.
• The inaccessibility of foundation data, particularly high-resolution data, is another barrier to progress.
• Due to a lack of clarity on data sharing and collaboration, co-creation and asset maximising are hindered.
• There are currently no ready-to-use solutions that have been specifically designed to address the concerns of India.
• While there are many geospatial professionals in India, the most of them have received their training either a master's degree programme or on-the-job training.
• In contrast to the Western world, India lacks a layer of key specialists who are familiar with the entire geospatial process from beginning to end.

Way Forward

• In the first instance, the complete policy paper must be made public, as well as making government and private users aware of what is going on.
• The data that is now available with government agencies should be freed, and data exchange should be promoted and made more convenient.
• A mechanism for open data exchange will be required in order for this to be practicable.
• The government must make significant investments in the development of standards and must require their implementation.
• There is a pressing need to develop a geo-portal that would make all publicly-funded data available through a data as a service model, at no or minimal cost, to the public.
• The most essential thing to do is to instil a culture of data sharing, cooperation, and co-creation in the organisation.
• In order to create solution templates for diverse business processes across departments, solution developers and start-ups should be enlisted to assist with the project.
• Local technology and solutions should be supported, and competition for high-quality production should be encouraged as a result.