In a newly announced mapping policy on 15th February 2021, the government of India has opened doors to liberalizing the country’s geospatial data. This move is being stated as a crucial step towards achieving the goal of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’. The Department of Science and Technology (DST) released a set of guidelines for acquiring and producing geospatial data and its services. What is Geospatial Data? Geospatial data (also called ‘geodata’) is data that represents the objects and/or their attributes on the Earth’s surface. The objects can be man-made or natural. This data is tied to the true geographic coordinates of Earth (georeferencing). Hence, this makes geospatial data extremely accurate. For example, , , vector maps, etc. are all types of geospatial data. Digital Elevation Model Geospatial Data — Digital Elevation ModelDigital Elevation Model (DEM) is a type of Geospatial Data Image source: LidarIndia Some common uses of this data include: Creating accur...