Opportunities and Challenges in Indian GIS Segment
By Manideep Saha
Nov 20, 2007

Growth in the use of spatial technologies has secured acceptance for geospatial technology as an effective decision-making tool even by the government agencies. They have realized that this technology can provide them the much-needed tool to address the ever increasing demand for data availability. The technology today is used in integrated land information systems, land reform offices, education sector, urban planning, etc.

According to a recent study conducted by Geospatial Today in association with Antrix Corporation and Survey of India in May 2006, the Geographical Information System (GIS) market (domestic and export markets) is expected to record a potential growth from Rs.962 crore (USD 209 million) in the year 2005 to Rs.2,820.30 crore (USD 613 million) by 2010 at a CAGR of 14.5%.

The awareness of GIS-based applications is in its initial phases. But many government, semi government agencies, and corporate organizations have recognized that this technology can provide them the much-needed tool to address the ever increasing demand for data availability through a highly visually intuitive decision making tool that gives you a panoramic view instead of a myopic view. The basic premise is to leverage spatial data for increase productivity.

In India, the central and state governments are the major users of geospatial applications since most of the basic infrastructure is owned and managed by them. The extensive use of GIS is palpable in various fields like laying of pipelines, building roads, laying transmission grids, etc.

Several large private sector organizations have also started extensive usage of GIS in utility mapping and asset management, retail and logistics management, pipelines and refineries, integration with CRM, location based services, agriculture produce management, etc.

Today, the Government of India and almost all state governments are convinced of the fact that to retain the overall economic growth of the country and have a continuous FDI inflow as well, substantial investment on infrastructure is very much needed. Also to sustain the current economic growth, India would require a large number of new projects to provide the required infrastructure.

Having said that, there are several major challenges that the industry still faces:

1. GIS and remote sensing application software require high end computers with high end graphics cards etc, which at the moment are comparatively expensive in India. But this problem will cease to persist gradually as prices of hardware keep going down.

2. GIS awareness and education levels are still low in India. It has yet to proliferate fully in the formal technical education space (graduate degree programs, diploma's, etc), even though many universities and colleges have started teaching GIS in PG programs.

3. The last but the biggest constraint is the easy availability of spatial data. In India, most of the organizations that have adopted GIS are still spending a lot of money and time on building data. One of the reasons attributable to this is the disparity between the various systems from which the data has to move from one form to another before the final desired output is available. The second reason is very tight government control on spatial data acquisition and high cost of satellite and aerial data.

The prospect of geospatial as a market is huge looking at the investment that's going in to the infrastructure industry. Also the adoption of GIS applications is gaining very high popularity and mindshare in most of the core infrastructure development areas like roads & highways, hydrology, hydro power, bridges, land development & earthwork, grading, site planning, power distribution, etc.

By Manideep Saha, head (Infrastructure Solutions) of India & SAARC Region