National Geospatial Policy (NGP) 2022

Why in News?

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

Highlights

• 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.
• The Ministry of Science and Technology issued “Guidelines for acquiring and producing Geospatial Data and Geospatial Data Services including Maps”.
• While the Guidelines deregulated the Geospatial sector by liberalizing Geospatial data acquisition/production/ access, the 2022 Policy takes it further by laying down an overarching framework for holistic development of the Geospatial ecosystem
• 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.
• 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.
• Geospatial technology and data can act as agents of transformation for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• This is a vibrant initiative to promote the Start-Up & reduce the last mile dependencies on the foreign soil.
• Geospatial data play a vital role in a wide spectrum of frequencies for critical data management applications, such as military operations, disaster and emergency management, environmental monitoring, land and city planning.