Many of us would never forget those missiles raining down on Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, with fluorescent flares lighting up the night sky, and fighter jets taking off aircraft carriers―all being telecast into living rooms. Indeed, a dramatic way for satellite television to make its big bang entrance into India.
Curiously enough, war on live TV wasn’t the only new thing the world witnessed. As the US assured Iraqi citizens that the safest place they could be every night was in their beds since it was using a technology to locate, pinpoint and bomb military and strategic targets, the world also saw the public unveiling of a revolutionary new technology―GPS, or the global positioning system, which navigated missiles to their precise target.
Yes, the same live mapping system that today you have on your smartphone. Digital mapping is currently dominated by Google, but it offers unlimited possibilities and some Indian players are already in the fray.
Last summer, Ola, which is a ride hailing app and an electric scooter maker, declared that it would stop using Google Maps, which was costing the company “Rs100 crore a year”, and assured the arrival of its own maps venture. Exiting Google Maps wasn’t just about a product, said Ola’s founder Bhavish Aggarwal. “It’s a battle cry for India’s technological freedom. India is now ready to take its place as a leader on the global tech stage.”
Ola Maps offered not just live traffic, but also more detailed information on smaller towns and villages, and it was more attuned to travel modes like two-wheelers than Google Maps. Aggarwal also called on developers to make use of its Application Programming Interfaces (API) accessible on cloud from Ola’s AI startup Krutim.
While Google scurried to protect its dominant position in the consumer maps market by slashing its API fees for developers and startups, another competitor, MapmyIndia, alleged that Ola had stolen its data, copying its proprietary data by mixing and reverse engineering its product which was licensed to Ola. Ola called the allegations “false, malicious and misleading.” The case is in the court.
While the slugfest and its progress is being keenly watched, what it has shown is the immense use cases and big business potential of maps. The geospatial information that mapping companies can develop for commercial and niche use cases are infinite. It can range from e-commerce companies and IoT tracking of logistics firms to agriculture. On a public administrative level, better mapping solutions offer great opportunity to improve government services. MapmyIndia already helps various government bodies, from mapping areas for taxation and catching financial fraud through shell companies for the tax department to the NavIC system in collaboration with ISRO and Indian Navy.
Prospective big areas will be in managing the operations of self-driving vehicles, flying taxis and autonomous drones, once these businesses mature.
Saharsh Agarwal, professor at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, puts it in perspective. “Local players like MapmyIndia and Ola Maps can offer more accurate geocoding and routing algorithms tailored to Indian conditions, potentially reducing delivery times and costs for e-commerce companies. Precision agriculture techniques, when adapted to Indian farming conditions, could help increase crop yields and reduce input costs. For example, satellite imagery combined with local mapping data could help farmers optimise irrigation, predict crop diseases, and plan harvests more effectively,” he said.
The rise of Indian companies here is particularly significant. For long, India’s restrictive regulations on mapping meant that any private domestic entity (it is an absolute no-no for foreign companies, unless the mapping happens through satellites) wanting to survey and map had to seek multiple permissions. The joke in the mapping industry was how even the Survey of India, the official government body for mapping, was often stuck because of the cumbersome security restrictions and pre-approvals.
All that changed, first with the geospatial guidelines issued in 2021, followed by a full-fledged policy in 2023. The new set of rules relaxed many of the stifling regulations and encouraged private sector involvement in mapping, and provided a framework for nurturing geospatial infra, standards and businesses, emphasising innovation and socioeconomic progress.
If the business use cases were not compelling enough, the new policy reiterated its restrictions on foreign bodies collecting accurate Indian mapping data, even while allowing Indian companies to do so. This instantly opened up massive business opportunities for Indian entrepreneurs, as they could capture minutely accurate data which they could monetise by selling on a subscription-basis.
According to the Geospatial Artha report, the market, which was around Rs13,000 crore in 2023, is expected to touch Rs24,000 this year. And the sector could employ some 10 lakh people.