Sibal for rational policy for geospatial data sharing

NEW DELHI: Pitching for a rational policy for sharing geospatial data, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal on Thursday asked all government departments to put such information in the public domain to empower the people.

Sibal voiced concern over the lack of enthusiasm shown by many government departments, except those related to security, on sharing of geospatial data for dissemination.

Any government department that is unwilling to share data would actually be dis-empowering the people and should be seen as an entity that was not interested in national welfare, he said inaugurating the 'NSDI-10: National Geospatial Ecosystem -The Road Ahead' here.

Sibal also mooted a regulator for sharing of geospatial data on the lines of the Telecom Regulatory Authority on India (TRAI).

"The sun has not yet risen for this sector as it is still not understood that technology is just an enabler, that geospatial technology is a tool for empowering India," he said.

Sibal said for optimizing the use of geospatial data, the need of the hour was to provide layers of information in the geospatial ecosystem, backed by a regulatory framework for regulating procedures for the grant of licensing of data and an accreditation and filtering process for certifying the accuracy of the data.

"We need to convince all central government departments, state governments and the line departments of the states that technology is not an end in itself; it is a vehicle for providing information to the people," he said.