The $4 billion Indian geospatial industry in India is expected to become a $20 billion market by 2025, growing at a cumulative annual rate of 12 to 15 per cent.
The estimated annual budget of government agencies for GIS services currently stands at $3 billion and this was expected to further increase with the government's push for leveraging space and location technologies for development and governance.
This was stated by Union Minister of Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation and Information and Broadcasting M. Venkaiah Naidu while inaugurating the Geospatial World Forum Ahere on Monday
The minister said the sector was likely to attract $500 billion investment over next five years and India being the only bright spot and growing economy in the world was a favourite destination for this investment.
About 3,000 delegates from global geospatial community, policy makers, academia, researchers and technology providers are attending the three-day event with the theme "Geospatial + Deep Learning: Shaping Smarter World".
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Naidu said the geospatial technologies were enabler platform advancement of civilisation and living standards of people.
He said the latest technologies could help improve governance and ensure effective delivery of schemes and programmes.
He said the government had big plans for digitalisation of 250,000 villages. "With digitialisation, we can effectively tackle tax evasion, corruption and black money," he added.
Naidu pointed out that the government launched several programs that make use of geospatial technologies. These initiatives include the Digital India, Demonetisation, promoting digital payments, Jan dhan-Aadhar-Mobile trinity and Smart Cities.
Stating that nearly 606 million people are poised to live in urban centres by 2030 in India, Naidu said the government had taken several initiatives to make cities more livable.
He claimed that the ministry of Urban Development programs like Smart Cities, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY) will transform India.
Speaking on the usage of the geospatial technologies in implementing government projects, Naidu said that the ministry of urban development recently-launched Google Toilet Locator app that helps users find the quickest way to a clean toilet.
--IANS
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