Map World Forum

There are two schools of thought viz. ‘Charge vs. No Charge’, regarding the issue of charging a price for government generated or government owned geospatial data, which is utilized by a large number of infrastructure, utility, natural resource management and business intelligence projects. Today, if the availability of enormous computing power is aided by ready access to geographic data, it will positively provide us with far better understanding of our social structure and also expedite organisational response towards the need for developmental activities. There has to be a national mandate on assured data availability and data updation on a long-term basis through a sustainable pricing policy. This Plenary session will feature a debate-cumdiscussion amongst prominent personalities who are either providers or consumers of geospatial data, about the pros and cons of charging for spatial datasets.