National Geospatial Policy: Status of the Indian Geodetic Data

The National Geospatial Policy has well communicated the need for sharing geospatial data, with an emphasis that these data must refer to the geodetic/topographic database of the Survey of India (SoI). SoI has been collecting, processing, archiving and disseminating geodetic data for over a century. Several stakeholders are using these datasets, viz. Government, academia, industry and researchers, for their respective applications. SoI also updated its database as and when required due to the introduction of sophisticated and precise instruments, accuracy requirements, or to improve the database scientifically. Although the results or policies involving the geodetic data are provided in the literature, there is limited discussion of the data themselves. This article provides comprehensive information about the geodetic data available to Indian users for various applications. The data discussed here are the horizontal and vertical positioning, gravity, geoid model and digital elevation models.