National Geospatial Policy

Why is in news? Conference discusses roadmap for successful implementation of the Geospatial Policy 2022

Experts suggested ways of pushing forward the new Geospatial Policy and harnessing it for National Development at the two-day conference on “Geospatial Policy for National Development” held from 21-22 February 2023

“All the Departments of the Government of India should explore, define and identify the schemes where Geospatial Technology and applications are needed and make strategy accordingly to push forward the Geospatial strategy,” said the Secretary, Department of Land Resources at the conference organised by the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

He underlined that Geospatial Technologies give power to people by making information accessible and emphasized the need and importance of having computerized and easily accessible land records for citizens to avail multiple benefits of welfare schemes implemented by Central and State Governments

India is only the 3rd Nation globally that is carrying out geo-referencing in the land parcels. Now 36 percent of the land has been geo-referenced, and the target is to achieve 100 percent by March 2024.

Land records and Geospatial Technologies and applications together will change the way governance in the coming years.

Geospatial Technology:

Geospatial technology uses tools like GIS (Geographic Information System), GPS (Global Positioning System) and Remote Sensing for geographic mapping and analysis.

These tools capture spatial information about objects, events and phenomena (indexed to their geographical location on earth, geotag). The location data may be Static or Dynamic.

Static location data include position of a road, an earthquake event or malnutrition among children in a particular region while dynamic location data include data related to a moving vehicle or pedestrian, the spread of an infectious disease etc.

The technology may be used to create intelligent maps to help identify spatial patterns in large volumes of data.

The technology facilitates decision making based on the importance and priority of scarce resources.

National Geospatial Policy (NGP) 2022:

The Ministry of Science and Technology has notified a National Geospatial Policy (NGP) 2022, with the goal of making India a world leader in the Global Geospatial Sector.

India's geospatial economy is expected to cross Rs 63,000 crore by 2025 at a growth rate of 12.8% and to provide employment to more than 10 lakh people.

It is a citizen-centric policy based on Geo-Spatial technology, which seeks to strengthen the Geospatial sector to support national development, economic prosperity and a thriving information economy.

The policy is aimed to set up high resolution topographical survey and mapping, with a high-accuracy Digital Elevation Model (DEM) by 2030.

A Geospatial Data Promotion and Development Committee (GDPDC) at the national level shall be the apex body for formulating and implementing strategies related to promotion of the Geospatial sector.

GDPDC would replace and subsume the functions and powers of the National Spatial Data Committee (NSDC) constituted in 2006 and GDPDC constituted in 2021.

The Department of Science & Technology shall continue to be the nodal Department of the Government and GDPDC shall make suitable recommendations to DST in the discharge of its functions relating to the Geospatial regime.

Goals:

It aims to make India a World Leader in Global Geospatial space with the best in the class ecosystem for innovation.

To develop a coherent national framework in the country and leverage it to move towards a digital economy and improve services to citizens.

To develop Geospatial infrastructures, Geospatial skill and knowledge, standards, Geospatial businesses.

To promote innovation and strengthen the national and sub-national arrangements for generation and management of Geospatial information.