With recent updates to geospatial laws, the country has opened doors to greater collaboration in this key domain
For more than a decade, India’s geospatial regime has been a fortified sector with stringent restrictions. Recent policy changes, aimed at attracting foreign investment, have eased many of those operational barriers. Geospatial data is a critical national infrastructure and an information resource, with direct application in every domain of the Indian economy.
For foreign companies that rely on and offer services related to GIS (geographic information systems), GPS (global positioning systems) and remote sensing, these changes are not just a business opportunity but an open invitation that India is ready for global partnerships.
Ravi Singhania
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Singhania & Partners
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Email: ravi@singhania.in
Since India does not have a statutory law, the Ministry of Science and Technology governs the regime through delegated legislation.
On 28 December 2022, the ministry notified the National Geospatial Policy, 2022, which conferred operational powers to the Guidelines for Acquiring and Producing Geospatial Data and Geospatial Data Services including Maps, 2021 (DST guidelines) and the Clarifications/Instructions for Compliance by All Concerned in Pursuance of Geospatial Guidelines (DST clarification) issued by the Department of Science and Technology, to advance its policy mandate.
This administrative governance framework clarifies legal boundaries and enables companies to capitalise on geospatial data. The DST guidelines differentiate geospatial data based on its accuracy.
Data finer than the threshold value must be stored and processed within India, while data with equal or lower precision can be freely captured, stored and processed by foreign entities.
Thus, Indian companies, whether public or private, have unrestricted access to create, acquire, collect, disseminate, store and distribute geospatial data finer than the threshold value, subject to localisation.
Jivesh Chandrayan
Partner
Singhania & Partners
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The unrestricted access paves the way for international players to enter nuanced collaborations with Indian companies, enabling them to tap into one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing geospatial data markets.
This represents a huge opportunity for foreign companies to generate and/or export digital geospatial maps/data of accuracy up to or coarser than the threshold value.
Concurrently, liberty is extended to foreign companies or their Indian subsidiaries to license finer digital geospatial data from Indian companies, through APIs (application programing interface) that prevent data transfer, reuse or resale.
The transparency and flexibility of India’s licensing regime give foreign players an early-mover advantage, enabling them to integrate into the domestic ecosystem, adapt to the evolving legal framework and engage constructively with regulators in shaping finer details.
India’s vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) does not imply a blanket ban on foreign participation. Indian companies’ indigenous capacity to thrive in an innovation-driven market, coupled with the structured collaboration with foreign players, reinforces their position as the fulcrum of the geospatial ecosystem.
Simplified procedures, the elimination of archaic licensing systems, and the implementation of modern delivery mechanisms such as cloud storage and open APIs have ensured seamless access to extensive datasets.
This expands the data pool and offers near unfettered access to a vast repository of assets, providing a strategic advantage and fostering mutually beneficial collaborations.
Indian companies are granted exclusive rights and access, for example, to ground truthing and verification, Indian ground stations and augmentation services for real-time positioning, along with rights to terrestrial mobile mapping surveys, street view surveys and surveys conducted within territorial waters, irrespective of accuracy thresholds.
These amplify the purported arrangements’ apparent attractiveness to any foreign player wanting to enter the Indian geospatial market. These privileges empower Indian collaborators with richer, more accurate and updated datasets, offering a strategic advantage for beneficial partnerships.
Reforms have flipped the script from fortress to frontier. India is mapping not just the territory but also a strong course to prosperity and innovation. For international players, this is not just another market. It is the epicentre where novelty meets opportunity.
Udi Prakash, an associate, provided research assistance on this article.
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