Why Companies Require Approval To Use Mapping Data While Google Is Freely Operating?

Several Founders, Co-Founders, CXO Bankers, CXO Fintech professional & people who participated in the ePanel discussions:

Mr. Abhishek Arun, Chief Operating Officer, Paytm Payments Bank
Mr. Taron Mohan, CEO & Promoter, NextGen Telesolutions Pvt Ltd
Mr. Ishan Vaish, India Partnership Manager- Worldwide Developer Relations, Apple
Mr. Arun Tanksali, Co-founder & CTO, Nearex
Mr. Shashank Chowdhury, Former Executive Vice President – Vakrangee Software Ltd
Mr. Amarto Chakrabarty, former Principal Consultant- Global Consulting Group, Wipro Limited
Mr. Vikas R Panditrao, Co-Founder, Forum of Industry and Academic Knowledge Sharing (FIAKS)
Many other CEO/CXO Bankers & Fintech professionals on FIAKS Forum requested to remain anonymous

Here’s another thoughtful and interesting question put forth by FIAKS community member, he quotes from reports on the liberalization of the mapping industry and democratization of existing datasets will spur domestic innovation and enable Indian companies to compete in the global mapping ecosystem by leveraging modern geospatial technologies. It is to be noted that MapmyIndia pioneered digital mapping in India in 1995, far before any foreign organization like Google.

A quick snippet of what is geospatial data? – Geospatial data has locational information connected to a dataset such as an address, city, or ZIP code. Simply put it is the data about objects, events, or phenomena that have a location on the earth’s surface. It includes information about roads, public amenities, rail lines, localities, etc which you can see is commonly used in various e-commerce apps, weather apps, etc

So here lies some food for thought;

Question 1: Why individuals and companies in India need to seek approval for use of mapping data under the Geospatial Information Regulation Act while Google is freely operating in our country. Isn’t this incorrect?

Most regulations from the government either support government bodies themselves and definitely are a less progressive plus to a large extent stifle innovation.
If the government needs to promote innovation giving away yearly awards isn’t enough. Must take examples from countries like Singapore. In the fintech world, for instance, the regulators have expert private participation on the board. We need thinkers and innovators to make policies and not old IAS officers who have shallow knowledge given by consultants.

Question 2: Are Regulators finding it fashionable to put Make in India at disadvantage? They did the same in the payment space by bringing in regulation on full KYC to kill homegrown wallets to create a favorable environment for foreign companies like Google, WhatsApp, etc.

Thereupon a member put forth some viewpoints:

A regulator is a much-maligned entity because some of their conservative positions do not allow the ambitious to fly. But deep down we all must realize that with all innovations and dreamy-eyed obsession of investments denominated in dollars. At the first instance of a defect in a regulated financial system, the regulator is held responsible. A regulator is not always prepared to factor in all the impacts of changes that have been too big and too frequent, they deserve their space and freedom to regulate in a way that secures the resources and assets of people in general.