Is INR 100 Cr Allocation A Drop In India’s Geospatial Ocean?

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday (February 1) announced that the government would commence a national mission to modernise land records, urban planning and design of infrastructure projects. 

Announcing the Union Budget 2025, Sitharaman said that the government “will start a National Geospatial Mission to develop foundational geospatial infrastructure and data”. 

For this, the government will use PM Gati Shakti, which was launched in October 2021 to provide multimodal connectivity infrastructure to various economic zones.

As part of this plan (Gati Shakti), the government decided to consolidate all data in one place by using GIS-based spatial planning and analytical tools to enable better visibility for the executing agency, which could range from state governments to municipal corporations and councils, forest department and even defence forces.

The National Geospatial Mission might come under this plan. 

According to Vishesh Rajaram, managing partner, Speciale Invest, the mission will help in getting access to reliable and accurate geospatial data, enabling informed decision-making in border security, urban planning, disaster management, and environmental conservation.

“Most of the dataset we have currently is very fragmented and unstructured. What we want to do right now is probably go to high accuracy of land records. We are now targeting the cm levels of boundaries,” Suyash Singh, the founder of GalaxEye told Inc42. 

While this is a welcome move, what’s intriguing is that the government has allocated a mere INR 100 Cr for the mission for the financial year 2025-26. 

Even though the INR 100 Cr allocation may look like a drop in the Indian geospatial ocean, Singh believes at least something is better than nothing. He added that in 2022, the government invited proof-of-concepts from companies to map urban areas. Generally, such provisions are paid. However, under the National Geospatial Policy (NGP) 2022, no payments were made. 

While the allocation of INR 100 Cr has been announced, this (the payment scenario) could change, although it is still unclear whether the fund will be spent on creating new GIS data or reworking the existing one.

Come as it may, for Sayandeb Banerjee, the cofounder and CEO of AI and analytics company MathCo, it is a good start, but it will require further fund infusion, given the vast geographic spread of the country.

Meanwhile, many drone tech players have welcomed the move, calling it a significant step forward in the modernisation of India’s infrastructure and land management systems. 

“As a drone solutions provider, we recognise the immense potential this initiative holds for our industry. Drones, equipped with geospatial data collection capabilities, are poised to be integral to the successful execution of this mission,” Om Prakash, founder of IG Drones said.

Meanwhile, it is to be noted that the national spatial mission has been announced nearly three years after the launch of NGP in 2022, which is aimed at liberalising access to geospatial data.

Not The First Stab At Modernising Data

It must be noted that it is not the government’s first stab at modernising land data. In fact, the Panchayati Raj ministry announced the SVAMITVA scheme in 2021, which was aimed at mapping rural properties using drone technology and providing legal ownership documents to villagers. 

Under this scheme, more than 3.1 Lakh villages have already been mapped. Geospatial data of as many as 2.7 Lakh villages has been handed over to their respective states as of 1 February 2025. This accounts for 47% of the rural land spread across the country, as per the 2011 census.

“Now, if the government is eying to replicate the same in urban areas, it will surely be a shot in the arm for Indian drone tech startups,” IG drones’ Prakash said. 

The development in this space has come at a time when investors have just started to get bullish in this space. In November 2024, geospatial startup Matrix Geo Solutions secured close to $1 Mn (around INR 10 Cr) in its pre-IPO funding round. Similarly, geospatial analytics startup DeepMatrix raised $1.6 Mn (INR 13.28 Cr) in a pre-Series A funding round last year.

It is imperative to note that this space falls under the larger deeptech industry, under which the deeptech startups raised $460 Mn across 78 deals. In the last decade, the deeptech sector has raised over $1.5 Bn more than 300 deals.