UPSC Prelims Practice Questions — "National Geospatial Policy 2022" marked a landmark reform that democratized access to geospatial data, liberalised the sector: Dr Jitendra Singh

Q1. The National Geospatial Policy, 2022 was notified and is implemented by which one of the following?

  • A. Department of Science & Technology (DST)
  • B. Department of Space (ISRO)
  • C. Ministry of Earth Sciences
  • D. Ministry of Defence

Q2. Which one of the following was the first formal step that deregulated India's geospatial sector for Indian entities?

  • A. The February 2021 Geospatial Guidelines
  • B. The National Geospatial Policy 2022
  • C. Operation Dronagiri
  • D. The Integrated Geospatial Data Sharing Interface (GDI)

Q3. For Indian entities, the requirement of prior approval, security clearance and licence for geospatial data and maps was dispensed with and replaced by self-certification in which year?

  • A. 2021
  • B. 2019
  • C. 2022
  • D. 2023

Q4. As highlighted in 2025-26, approximately how many Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) has the Survey of India established?

  • A. Over 1,100
  • B. Over 15,000
  • C. About 110
  • D. About 280

Q5. Operation Dronagiri, launched in 2024 as a pilot, was rolled out under the aegis of which one of the following?

  • A. Department of Science & Technology (DST)
  • B. Department of Space (ISRO)
  • C. Ministry of Defence
  • D. Ministry of Rural Development

Q6. The Integrated Geospatial Data Sharing Interface (GDI), the backbone of Operation Dronagiri, has been officially likened to which flagship digital public infrastructure for the transformation it is expected to bring?

  • A. Unified Payments Interface (UPI)
  • B. Aadhaar
  • C. DigiLocker
  • D. Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC)

Q7. Consider the following as features/goals of the National Geospatial Policy 2022. Which of the above is/are NOT correct?

  1. A long-term vision horizon extending to 2035.
  2. High-resolution topographical survey and mapping of the entire country by 2030.
  3. A highly accurate Digital Elevation Model (DEM) for the entire country.
  4. Retention of mandatory prior security clearance for Indian start-ups.
  • A. 1 only
  • B. 4 only
  • C. 2 and 3
  • D. 1, 2 and 3

Q8. The National Centre for Geodesy (NCG), set up to anchor India's geodetic research and capacity building, has been established at which one of the following institutions?

  • A. IIT Kanpur
  • B. IISc Bangalore
  • C. IIT Bombay
  • D. Survey of India headquarters, Dehradun

Q9. The following are cited as components of India's indigenous geospatial/positioning stack underpinning the National Geospatial Policy. Which of the above is/are NOT correctly identified as an indigenous Indian system?

  1. NavIC — indigenous regional navigation satellite system.
  2. The pan-India CORS Network of the Survey of India.
  3. The national Digital Elevation Model (DEM) programme.
  4. GLONASS — India's indigenous satellite navigation constellation.
  • A. 1 and 3
  • B. 2 only
  • C. 4 only
  • D. 1, 2 and 4

Q10. Under the geospatial regime, which of the following activities/permissions are correctly identified as reserved exclusively for Indian Entities?

  1. Terrestrial Mobile Mapping survey.
  2. Street View survey.
  3. Unrestricted access to CORS real-time positioning/augmentation data.
  4. Storing and processing finer-than-threshold geospatial data outside India.
  • A. 1 and 2 only
  • B. 1, 2 and 3 only
  • C. 2, 3 and 4 only
  • D. 1, 2, 3 and 4