Geospatial data policy eases business of map making February 19, 2021 × The government’s decision to liberalise its geospatial data policy earlier this week has been welcomed by academics and entrepreneurs alike as this would bring immense value to general public, help enterprises develop innovative products and make governance more transparent and hassle-free. “Surveying and mapping is so critical to decision-making, planning, infrastructure, logistics and to services with 80 per cent of all data having some geospatial component. Hence it is important to have ease of doing business in surveying and mapping,” said Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST). Surveying and mapping has been freed of all pre-approvals as also vetting of data. Data has been democratised with whatever produced using taxpayer money in public domain, except those required for security purposes and collected by security agencies. It is also for empowering both public sector private sector in the country, Sharma said.