The geospatial economy in the country is expected to cross the ₹63,000-crore mark by 2025, growing at 12.8 per cent, and will provide employment to over 10 lakh people. Geospatial start-ups are going to play a major role in this, according to Union Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, Jitendra Singh.

Delivering the keynote address at the second United Nations World Geospatial Information Congress (UN-WGIC) 2022 here on Tuesday, he said over 250 geospatial start-ups in the country were developing products and services in domains such as waste resource management, forestry, urban planning and mapping of roads.

“Democratisation of Indian geospatial ecosystem will spur domestic innovation and enable companies to compete in the global mapping ecosystem by leveraging modern geospatial technologies,” he said.

45 lakh km roads mapped

He said the Rural Development Ministry had mapped over 45 lakh kilometres of rural roads. About 2.6 lakh gram panchayats had been covered by the ministry under the scheme of mapping and digitisation.

He said the management of the Covid-19 pandemic was a good example to show where geo-enabled technology was used to develop a health services app. This had helped in identifying containment zones, aided in monitoring citizen movement, administrating vaccines and ensuring social distancing.

Holistic approach

Jitendra Singh felt that the future national geospatial ecosystem required a holistic transformation to keep up with innovations in the digital economy to ‘break and connect the silos’.

The Minister has inaugurated a geospatial incubator, marking the inaugural of the conference. Over 2,000 delegates from 120 countries are taking part in the five-day conference, a Government release said.

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