Chennai: The Ministry of Science and Technology Monday released new guidelines for the Geo-spatial sector in India which deregulates existing protocol and liberalises the sector to a more competitive field. The government has liberalised policies for mapping and geospatial data. Under the old policies it was not easy for Indian companies to build tools and provide better mapping and geospatial data technologies. The ultimate goal for India according to the government is to be self-reliant when it comes to navigation mapping and geospatial data. After ISRO launched NavIC as a GPS alternative the new policy change will empower Indian companies to get access to accurate maps of Indian territories without going through multiple processes of permissions and approvals. The Department of Science and Technology while announcing the new guidelines for geospatial data said “What is readily available globally does not need to be restricted in India.” This could potentially lead to private players seeking maps and data that suit their specific purposes. For instance local delivery of products and services requires highly specific details of a locality within a town. This in turn could lay the ground work for future smart city projects. There are strict restrictions on the collection storage use sale dissemination of geo-spatial data and mapping under the current regime. The policy had not been renewed in decades and has been driven by internal as well as external security concerns. The sector so far is dominated by the Indian government as well as government-run agencies such as the Survey of India and private companies need to navigate a system of permissions from different departments of the government (depending on the kind of data to be created) as well as the defence and Home Ministries to be able to collect create or disseminate geo-spatial data.

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