Centre Seeks Bids for Manufacture of 10 Lakh Homegrown NavIC Chips

Centre is seeking proposals for design, manufacture, supply and maintenance of integrated NavIC and GPS receivers.

The Indian government is seeking proposals for design, manufacture, supply and maintenance of integrated NavIC and GPS receivers.

(Image: The Quint)

The Indian government has invited proposals for the manufacture of 10 lakh receiver chips that have GPS and NavIC, in an attempt to improve the overall signal availability of positioning systems, and increase the use of the indigenous positioning system.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has floated a request for proposal (RFP) for the design, manufacture, supply and maintenance of integrated NavIC and GPS receiver chips.

In a bid titled, “Request for Proposal Design, Manufacture, Supply and Maintain Integrated NavIC and GPS Receivers,” the ministry has stated it wishes to use the NavIC integrated receivers for areas such as navigation on land, air and water, disaster management, vehicle tracking, location services on mobile phones.

With NavIC, the government is keen to promote an “indigenous positioning technology,” one that is “totally under Indian control,” the RFP states.

The adoption of NavIC assumes greater significance given it was designed and developed to reduce the country’s reliance on foreign positioning technology, after the US denied crucial GPS information during the Kargil war in 1999.

WHAT IS NavIC?

Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) named as NavIC is ISRO’s initiative to build an independent and regional satellite navigation system based on a constellation of seven GEO and GSO satellites.

The satellites are placed in two different orbital planes; three satellites in the Geostationary orbit (GEO) and four satellites in the Geosynchronous orbit (GSO) with an inclination of 29º.

The RFP states that NavIC “provides accurate position information service to users in India as well as the region extending up to 1500 km from its boundary of India.”

WHAT ARE THE APPLICATIONS OF NavIC?

IRNSS will provide two types of services:

1. Standard Positioning Service (SPS) which is provided to all the users and
2. Restricted Service (RS), which is an encrypted service provided only to the authorised users.

The IRNSS System is expected to provide a position accuracy of better than 20 m in the primary service area.

WHAT CAN NavIC BE USED FOR?

According to ISRO, NavIC finds usage in a range of activities such as:

• Terrestrial, aerial and marine navigation
• Disaster management
• Vehicle tracking and fleet management
• Integration with mobile phones
• Precise timing
• Mapping and geodetic data capture
• Terrestrial navigation aid for hikers and travellers
• Visual and voice navigation for drivers.

HOW IS NavIC DIFFERENT FROM GPS?

While the GPS is maintained by the US government, NavIC is an indigenous system developed and maintained by the Indian government.

NavIC has been designed to provide accurate position information to users within India. “It will help India enter the club of select countries which have their own positioning systems,” an Economic Times report had stated in 2018.

In 1999, when Pakistani troops took positions in Kargil in 1999, the Indian military had sought global positioning system (GPS) data for the region. The space-based navigation system maintained by the US government would have provided vital information, but the US denied it to India.

“A need for an indigenous satellite navigation system was felt earlier, but the Kargil experience made the nation realise its inevitability,” the Economic Times report stated.

Besides America’s GPS (with 24 satellites in a constellation), Russia has its GLONASS and European Union its Galileo. Interestingly, China is also in the process of building Beidou Navigation Satellite System.

Integrated NavIC and GPS receiver chip will improve overall signal availability and position accuracy in urban areas and will also support additional messaging facility, unlike GPS-only receiver chips.

WHAT DOES THE TENDER RFP SAY

According to the proposal document issued by MeitY, “Government of India envisages commercialisation of NavIC user receivers to promote an indigenous positioning technology.”

The winning bidder is required to design, manufacture, supply and maintain 10 lakh Integrated NavIC and GPS receivers; and ensure deployment of Integrated NavIC and GPS receivers.

All bidders will have to submit an Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) of Rs 1 crore.

“Also, NavIC system is totally under Indian control, which is a major requirement for a sovereign country. This information has a lot of business potential, and thus the development of an indigenous system dovetails well with ‘Make in India,’ and ‘Digital India’ programs.”

MeitY