HYDERABAD: Indian geospatial industry is expected to become a 20 billion dollar market by 2025, Union Urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu said while speaking at the inaugural of the three-day Geospatial World Forum here on Monday.
“We are living in a new age, with new aspirations, new innovations and new inventions. All moving towards a smart future. Indian geospatial industry is expected to become a 20 billion dollar market by 2025, growing at a cumulative annual rate of 12-15 per cent. The estimated annual budget of government agencies for GIS services today stands at three billion dollars,” said Naidu.
The Indian government has also launched several flagship programmes that makes use of geospatial technologies like the smart cities programme, skill development, Digital India, Start-Up India and Make in India, he added.
Centre’s initiative JAM (short for Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) trinity is the bedrock of many initiatives to link Jan Dhan accounts, Mobile numbers and Aadhaar cards of Indians to plug the leakages of government subsidies, said Naidu on the direct benefit transfer.
“Massive urbanisation is going on in the country. And it is a very natural process. The government has taken several initiatives to focus on making cities more livable and urban life more comfortable,” said Naidu. Nearly 606 million people are poised to live in urban centres by 2030 in India. India’s present urban population is 11 per cent of the world’s urban population, which will be grown to 13 percent by 2020, he added.
“The geospatial sector has a bright future, there is an opportunity for up to $ 500 billion in investments and thousands of jobs. As per World Economic Forum and the Asian Development Bank reports, India has the highest forex and the lowest inflation,” said Venkaiah Naidu.
“Just like Survey of India gives an address to people living in a nation, this demonetisation drive is like a ‘survey of notes’. The biggest achievement of demonetisation is that every currency note today has an address - like geo-tagging - and the initiative has helped notes find their way back to banks,” he said.
Union minister of state for labour and employment Bandaru Dattatreya said the Survey of India contribution is immense to society’s development and advancement. Land records are not maintained properly in Telangana State and there is a need to integrate the land record system with Geospatial Technology, he added. The Geospatial World Forum was jointly inaugurated by Naidu and Dattatreya.