| Abstract: | The Indian Earth Observations Program, over the past three decades, has been mainly driven by the national need for natural resources management, environment monitoring and disaster support. With an array of seven Indian Earth Observation Satellites, national development support has been provided through a well-knit institutional framework of a National Natural Resources Management System (NNRMS). A wide variety of applications have been developed as an inter-agency effort over the past 15 years. Now, the capacity of the programme has extended into the global arena and is providing operational data services to the global user community. Positioning of relevant policy guidelines for the EO program to contribute to national endeavor and its transitioning for global outreaching and development of a commercial enterprise — both at national and global levels has been an area of constant attention within ISRO.Issues related to defining the space and data acquisition as a national “public ground”, costing of data products and services and evolving a commercial Earth Observation policy have been addressed for providing the overall thrust of the Indian Earth Observations program. The paper discusses the evolution of the policy in the early stages and its transition today to support a two-pronged strategy of supporting national development support and at the same time, developing a commercial program. The paper also illustrates the success of these policy endeavors through specific cases of applications and development of value added services. The paper also brings out the potential policy adjustments that will be called for in the coming years. |
