Question : REVENUE THROUGH SALE OF I.R.S. DATA

MINISTER OF STATE FOR PLANNING, STATISTICS & PROGRAMME IMPLEMENTATION AND ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS & PUBLIC GRIEVANCES (SHRI ARUN SHOURIE)

(a) The revenue earned by Antrix Corporation Limited, a wholly owned Government of India Company under the administrative control of the Department of Space, during the last two financial years by way of sale of IRS data abroad is as follows:

Financial Year	Revenue earned	(Rs. in lakhs)
1997-98	375.19	1998-99	590.24

(b) The market share of data sales of India in the global market is estimated at 15%.

(c) While the IKONOS data has an edge because of its high resolution and would serve the specific market segment of large scale mapping, the IRS data will continue to have its niche amongst users because of its wider coverage and complementarity of imaging capabilities – specifically in natural resources management and environmental monitoring.

(d) To cater to the challenging requirements of the user community and also to maintain edge in the remote sensing programme, the Department of Space is already working on advanced satellites which will provide imaging capabilities at par with the contemporaneous imaging satellites. Further, developing appropriate application services using the existing IRS data at 5.8m resolution for key applications, specifically because of the wider swath and multispectral imaging, will help maintain edge of the IRS data market.