Recently, Google launched a 360-degree panorama under its Street View service for 10 Indian cities, including Delhi and Gurugram. This project is also known as “Project Gullify”.
The Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) released new guidelines for the geospatial sector in India. These guidelines replaced or amended the previous protocols of Geo-Spatial in India. The term “geospatial” means representing data linked with a particular location with the help of technology.
Geospatial technology is a field of study which includes remote sensing (RS), global positioning systems (GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). India adopted geospatial technology to acquire data concerning the earth. This technology is also beneficial for analysis and visualization.
What is Geospatial data?
Geospatial data is about objects with a particular location on the earth’s surface. The location can be both static and dynamic. Static things are those which do not move from their place. On the other hand, dynamic locations are the moving objects that move.
It consists of information helpful for people, such as the location of public transport, water bodies, roads etc. With time, geospatial data is available to all.
Various apps for daily use that have geospatial technology in them are as follows:
- Zomato
- Swiggy
- Amazon
- Flipkart etc
The government issued new guidelines
On February 15, 2021, new guidelines were taken into consideration. The government has imposed restrictions on the collection, storage, daily use, and sale of geospatial data.
Most of the control of geospatial data will be under the union government and agencies run by the union government. To use the technology, private companies will have to get permission from government departments. The Home Ministry and Defence Ministry can ask for the records or collection.
The specialists have predicted that this project will reach around 1 lakh crore by 2029.
Benefits of Geospatial policy
- Economic growth
According to the India Geospatial Artha Report 2021, by the end of 2025, this sector will collect 63,100 crore. It will boost the government sector as well as private companies.
- Rise in employment
Geospatial policies will also give rise to employment. Private companies like Amazon and Zomato will use these technologies for location tracking to provide jobs. According to the data, the sector will expand within three years to 9.5 lakh.
- Easily available and use
Challenges in the way
- Lack of demand
There is no such demand for geospatial. The sector provides services. Only private companies like Flipkart or Swiggy use the technology. There is a massive gap between the introduction and implementation. The middle market geospatial market is absent.
- Lack of awareness
Due to the lack of awareness among the masses, the demand is low. People are unfamiliar with the use of technology. Along with this, professionals who know this task well are fewer in number.
Many people are trained for the programme, but due to ill-managed opportunities, opportunities are mismatched.
- Technical work
Geospatial technology, which deals with the earth, has some technical steps which have to be taken only by those knowledgeable enough in the same field.
- Insecurity
A lot of geospatial data is available on several other platforms, which can pose a threat to the nation. Further, some specialists believe that this globally available technology is not a good alternative for use by the common man.
This freely available data regarding a nation could prove to be dangerous. There can be some chances of misuse or leaked information in the country.
