India's geospatial economy to hit Rs 63K Cr by 2025 spurred by startups

Speaking at the Second United Nations World Geospatial Information Congress (UN-WGIC) 2022 in Hyderabad, union minister for science & technology Dr Jitendra Singh said that he expects the geospatial economy to grow to Rs 63,000 crore by 2025.

According to a PIB press release, Dr Singh said that he expects the industry to see a 12.8 percent annual growth rate, and for the industry to employ 10 lakh people within the same time frame. He said that he expects this growth to largely be driven by startups.

According to Dr Singh, the country currently boasts of around 250 geospatial startups, and to further incentivise entrepreneurship, he unveiled a government-backed Geospatial Incubator. Additionally, the Minister pointed out that several geospatial projects had already been undertaken by public bodies such as Survey of India and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

He stated that the Rural Development Ministry has mapped over 45 lakh kilometres of rural roads by using 21 data layers, which has helped digitise information regarding water bodies, green areas, plots, and other structures essential for administrative purposes. He revealed that nearly 2.6 lakh gram panchayats had been covered by the ministry under the scheme of mapping and digitisation.

One of the largest use cases of geospatial technology is geographical information system mapping (GIS), whose data can be collected from satellites and drones among other hardware.