GIS mapping: GIS mapping should be done jointly by government and companies like MapMyIndia: Rohan Verma

Rohan Verma, CEO & ED, MapMyIndia, says like there is UPI for payments or Aadhaar for people identification, the ULPIN or the MapMyIndia equivalent or linked ID called Mappls Pin can provide capabilities to reduce court disputes on land ownership, and provide economic empowerment or financial inclusion for everybody as well as proper city and town planning, reduction and congestion, improvement in air pollution, etc.

Now that land records are going to be digitised with GIS mapping as per the recent budget announcement, how big is the market size for this kind of mapping? How does life change for you?
Rohan Verma: It is a really good initiative by the Government of India to go deep into GIS for land records. This is great for social harmony as well as economic benefits, both in rural and urban India, as it will lead to great opportunities for farmers to have credit taxes, property rights kind of and agricultural services. In the urban areas, it will help the urban local bodies manage their property tax property records, leading to revenue. It is a great opportunity for us as a company. We have strong capabilities. In this, we have been servicing the land records area, both in rural as well as urban, through our drone-based digital twin solutions, our property tax software systems, and even our Mappls Pin which you saw this reference to, ULPIN, Urban Land Unique Land Parcel Identification Number. And Mappls Pin is a unique digital address and ID for every location. So, it does open up a large opportunity for us. This initiative by the government has to be done carefully. It is a complex issue. My request is it should be done jointly by the government and the capable organisations in this space.

What exactly is this GIS mapping?
Rohan Verma: Essentially with the land records, road infrastructure is a driver for logistics efficiency, supply chain, transport, etc. Land records are central to the rural areas for people to say that this is my property. It is marked out geospatially along with the record of rights or property ownership.

Against that, they can get collateral and against that digitised collateral, they can get loans or if the land parcel is known, then the correct advisory for farmers for that farm can be given and similarly in the urban area when the land records are digitised and the land use is mapped and what type of property is on top of that urban land parcel, accordingly property tax can be determined and the commercial use or residential use, etc, and that can be applied and that is revenue and proper planning of cities and towns and all of this happens through software platforms such as what MapMyIndia offers which is MGIS, this geospatial analytics platform.

It happens through our ground vehicle or foot or even drone-based digital twin surveys to create full 3D maps or high-resolution images and then digitise them to come up with information about each place. Finally, marked with a unique digital ID, like an Aadhaar for a place, against which all sorts of information about that land record, as well as all sorts of services that have to be provided are mapped. So, like there is UPI for payments or Aadhaar for people identification, this ULPIN or what MapMyIndia equivalent or linked ID is called Mappls Pin can provide those capabilities. So, there are immense opportunities to reduce the court disputes on land ownership, but also to provide economic empowerment or financial inclusion to everybody as well as proper city and town planning, reduction and congestion, improvement in air pollution, and all of those things.There have also been a lot of opinions when it comes to the overall startup industry and they have been talking about reducing the dependence on the global map solutions providers. How is the mapping industry taking up these announcements? What is the view on it?
Rohan Verma: It is a very interesting time and in the recent past there have been a lot of talks on this. I have tried to stay quiet. We have tried to stay quiet on it. But I feel it is worth responding to since you are asking the question. See, on one side, you have global map providers which have monopolised the market and done price gouging or unreliable pricing, sometimes offering it free, sometimes doing price gouging, and sometimes reducing it. These are unreliable sources on which Indian enterprises and consumers are getting dependent.

On the other hand, there are local companies that do not have a history or track record in mapping and which require long innovation which, for example, MapMyIndia has done for 30 years, and coming up with products which again are based on foreign open source where the maps are not accurate and making… gimmicky things like giving it free.

Of course, a pathetic product deserves no price but MapMyIndia has been doing this for 30 years reliably with the best product at the right price for the Indian market. Seeing our success, many other companies would like to get into this space and we are happy to have competition. But we also want consumers, app developers and enterprises to be aware that such practices of both global and incapable local players should not kind of create a mess in the industry because at the end of the day, an accurate map is required to solve mission-critical problems and we should not have a situation where consumers are being navigated into water or enterprises who have to deliver e-commerce or like ambulance services are having problems with unreliable maps.

I think people have to be aware and not give in to this kind of gimmicks that we are seeing from these foreign and other local players.