News Highlights
Google has launched its 360-degree interactive panorama feature for 10 Indian cities with data from Tech Mahindra and Mumbai-based Genesis International, which is also known as Project Gullify.
Key Takeaways
- Project Gullify has been made possible by the new National Geospatial Policy 2021.
- Street View will be initially launched in 10 Indian cities (including Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, etc.)
- And be rolled out to 50 Indian cities by the end of the year, mapping over 700,000 km in two years.
Significance of Project Gullify:
- Street View, given its integration with Google Maps, is expected to have much more impact, helping users with a better understanding of road conditions and discovery of local businesses.
- Google Maps has announced that it will add speed limit data for Bengaluru and Chandigarh and road congestion data for 9 cities.
- It is also developing the environmental insights explorer tool, which will allow planners to better understand how to reduce emissions in cities by measuring emissions based on traffic patterns.
- It will also begin to display localised street-level Air Quality Index (AQI) numbers in a few cities.
- This data will aid in infrastructure planning and spark new use cases, such as creating base data for autonomous vehicles in India.
The National Geospatial Policy (NGP) 2021:
- The Department of Science & Technology launched NGP 2021 to liberalise the field of the Geospatial Sector in the country for acquiring and producing Geospatial Data, Maps and related Services & Solutions.
- It aims to boost geospatial entrepreneurship for the socio-economic development of India.
- It also aims to promote the use of geospatial products and services, generate useful insights from geospatial data and strengthen India’s geospatial infrastructure and capabilities.
Key Features of the (NGP) 2021:
- The Survey of India (SoI) topographic data will be made widely and easily accessible.
- Geospatial data and information produced using public funds will be shared as per the National Data Sharing, and Accessibility Policy (2012).
- Efforts will be made to standardise the storage formats of geospatial data so that it becomes available in an interoperable machine-readable form.
- A standardised curriculum will be developed for geospatial data education.
- A certifying body will be constituted to review the practices of professionals such as surveyors and certify individuals on the completion of courses in geospatial education.
- The policy reiterated the intention of the government to trust businesses and individuals to work with geospatial data without obtaining clearances from the government, except in the case of sensitive “negative” attributes which are not to be marked on maps.
Content Source: The Hindu