On 11th February, 2021, Department of Space (DoS) & CE Info Systems Pvt Ltd (owned by MapmyIndia) entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). According to the agreement, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) & MapmyIndia will partner to build an Indigenous, mapping portal and geospatial services which could become an alternative to GoogleMaps & GoogleEarth services.
- MapmyIndia’s digital maps and ISRO’s catalogue of satellite imagery and earth observation data will be utilized to build the indigenous portal.
- The entities will also build a holistic geospatial solution using ISRO’s earth observation datasets like ‘NavIC’, ‘VEDAS’ & ‘MOSDAC’ Geoportals.
i.The MoU was signed by R Umamaheswaran, Scientific Secretary of ISRO on behalf of DoS & Rakesh Verma, Chairman & Managing Director of CE Info Systems Pvt Ltd on behalf of the company.
- The collaboration will provide a detailed, comprehensive, privacy-centric, hyper-local, indigenous mapping solution to the Indians.
- It will also show the users map-based analytics and insights on weather, pollution, agricultural output, land-use changes, flood and landslide disasters.
India’s Geoportals:
i.IRNSS – Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) called NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) is India’s Indigenous navigation system developed by ISRO
ii.BHUVAN – National Geo-Portal developed & hosted by ISRO consisting of geospatial data, services and tools for analysis.
iii.VEDAS – ‘Visualisation of Earth observation Data and Archival System’ – a digital geoprocessing platform which uses optical, microwave, thermal and hyperspectral Earth Observing (EO) data covering apps meant for academia, research and problem solving.
iv.MOSDAC – ‘Meteorological and Oceanographic Satellite Data Archival Centre’ – An data repository for Meteorological missions of ISRO, it deals with weather related information, oceanography and tropical water cycles.
MapmyIndia:
- It is a New Delhi based Indian Geospatial Technology company which develops location based Software Service and Artificial Intelligence (AI) based solutions.
- At present MapmyIndia’s maps cover 7.5 Lakh Villages, 7500+ cities at street and building-level connected by 63 Lakh Kilometres of road network across India.
- It provides maps for around 3 Crore Plus places across India.
Recent Related News:
i.January 8, 2021, K Sivan, Secretary of Department of Space (DoS) & Chairman of ISRO has chalked out the plan for the Decade 2021-30. It has listed both Short-term vision & Long-term visions.
About Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO):
Chairman– Kailasavadivoo (K) Sivan
Headquarters– Bangalore, Karnataka
About MapmyIndia:
MD, Chairman – Rakesh Verma
Headquarters – New Delhi
