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NRSA to route imageries from foreign satellites

Madhumathi D.S.

BANGALORE, Aug. 20

CORPORATE and urban-planners in India need not fret any more: they can finally access high resolution earth imageries from foreign satellites such as `Ikonos' legally.

These one-metre resolution imageries will be routed through the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), Hyderabad, but after defence-sensitive areas are erased, according to the recently approved national remote sensing data policy framework.

NRSA is an autonomous society under the Department of Space and is the source for data from Indian satellites IRS 1C and 1D.

IRS imageries of 5.8 metre resolution were the world's best until Ikonos came along two years ago -- a private US satellite of Lockheed Martin's Space Imaging. From some 900 km above the earth's surface, its cameras can show objects of one metre size-- a boulder or a boundary wall of that thickness, for instance.

Some 20 users are in the queue for one-m data, including the Andhra Government, telecom majors Tatas and Reliance, besides agri-planners, water and sanitation agencies, DoS officials told Business Line.

Until now, there was no guideline on acquiring foreign satellite data. ``This is only a regulatory move and is not meant to be restrictive at all,'' a top space scientist involved in the policy making exercise said. It would bring in transparency and use r accountability.

``For national security reasons, sensitive areas in the imageries will be masked before they are given to the end user, just as in the case of IRS 1C and 1D data.''

As for competition to Indian data, officials said IRS and Ikonos have each their respective market share. Besides, Ikonos pictures cost around Rs 1,750 per sq km, and an IRS picture a mere Rs 10. Ikonos clients may have to wait for 4-5 months. Its sharpe r view will also give a smaller area.

The policy, they said, ``has opened up big developmental application possibilities'' for many users who need high definition mapping. They include urban development authorities, industry, telecom, road, and sanitation services, city map makers and disast er managers.

Last year, the Andhra Pradesh Government, for one, had contracted SI for Rs 50 crore to get one-m resolution pictures of its coastline for its cyclone hazard mitigation project. But it could not get the data in the absence of a policy on foreign satellit e imagery.

Worldwide, some $500 million worth of raw data from remote sensing satellites is sold annually. Because of the huge demand for the finer pictures, satellite companies are now rushing at the estimated billion-dollar market in one-metre imagery slot. India is also inching towards this pie. Cartosat-1 with 2.5 m resolution and Cartosat-2 with 1 m resolution are due for launch in 2002 and 2003.

Starting October, a slew of 1-m satellites are slated for launch, among them Orbview 3 and 4 by Orbital Image Corp; Quick Bird 2 by Earthwatch (both US); and EROS 1 by Israel. A DoS official said, ``Such competition should also bring the imagery prices d own in two years.''