In a breakaway session of the post-budget webinar on Technology-Enabled Development, the Experts discussed ways for transforming India through geospatial knowledge and infrastructure, informed the Ministry of Science and Technology on Thursday.
The webinar was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Data generation and data governance are crucial components of geospatial technologies, and effective collaboration between government, academia, and industry is needed for them. The government is removing all restrictions to resolve the issues for better outreach of the data. Once the data is made accessible, its potential is immense to provide solutions in numerous sectors. In order to effectively implement all these, trained manpower is necessary at all levels,” said Dr. Kiran Kumar, former Secretary, Department of Space and former Chairman, ISRO, at the breakaway session titled ‘Transforming India through geospatial knowledge and infrastructure: the need for national geospatial policy’, led by the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
“We need to have mechanisms in which the government and industry can work as partners; validations can be given to the solutions provided by the industry, and we need the right people with the right skills who can take these initiatives forward. The Budget 2022 discussed the data collection and its accessibility, and this needs to be leveraged,” Dr. Kumar added at the webinar on 2nd March 2022. The webinar titled “Technology-enabled development” was organized by Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) along with several scientific ministries and departments of the Government of India.
Dr. Shanthanu Bhatawdekar, Director, EOA & DMS Program Office, ISRO, highlighted that the government should share domain expertise in this area with the private for deeper penetration of the technologies. He also underlined the need for ministries, line departments, and the geospatial industry to work in unison.
“We need a road map for geospatial R&D system, technology generation, education, data sharing, encouraging academic startups, and we need to leapfrog to meet the global benchmark,” said Dr. Bharat Lohani, Professor, IIT Kanpur. He also emphasized the need for data standardization and unification.