Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, 18 June 2026, told an audience at VivaTech 2026 in Paris, France that India has integrated more than 1,600 geographic data layers onto a single GI-based map, describing it as a whole-of-government planning platform for infrastructure. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw shared the remarks on X, amplifying the Prime Minister's address at one of Europe's largest technology and innovation gatherings.

Context

Speaking at VivaTech 2026, Prime Minister Modi stated: 'We have integrated more than 1,600 geographic data layers on a single GI-based map. We have created an integrated data-driven whole of government planning platform for infrastructure.' The remarks position India's geospatial infrastructure stack as a flagship example of digital public infrastructure at a prominent international forum.

VivaTech, held annually in Paris, is a major global technology fair where governments and corporations showcase digital innovations. India has used the platform in recent years to present its digital governance achievements to an international audience of investors, policymakers, and technologists.

Policy Backdrop

The platform PM Modi described is rooted in the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan, launched in October 2021. Gati Shakti was designed as a GIS-enabled system to integrate infrastructure data across central ministries, replacing fragmented, siloed planning with a single shared map-based view for multi-modal coordination.

A complementary National Geospatial Policy, released in 2022, expanded access to geospatial data for both public agencies and private developers, laying the regulatory foundation for the kind of large-scale data integration the Prime Minister referenced. Together, these two policy instruments form the backbone of India's data-driven infrastructure planning architecture under the broader Digital India framework.

The integration of more than 1,600 data layers — spanning road networks, railways, ports, waterways, utilities, and land records — represents the operational depth of this platform, enabling planners across ministries to identify bottlenecks, coordinate approvals, and track project progress on a unified interface.

Stakeholders and Impact

The primary beneficiaries of the platform are central government ministries responsible for infrastructure delivery — including Roads, Railways, Ports, Power, and Telecom — which previously operated on separate data systems, leading to coordination gaps and project delays. By consolidating data, the platform aims to reduce duplication and accelerate decision-making.

Infrastructure developers, both public-sector undertakings and private players, stand to benefit from cleaner, more accessible project data. For international audiences at VivaTech, the demonstration also serves a diplomatic and economic purpose: positioning India as a destination for technology-linked infrastructure investment.

Minister Vaishnaw, who oversees the Electronics and IT portfolio, has been a consistent advocate for India's digital public infrastructure model, making his amplification of these remarks a signal of the government's intent to project this platform as a replicable global standard.

What's Next

Attention will now turn to how widely the integrated platform has been adopted across all central ministries and whether state governments are being onboarded onto the same system. Parliamentary and cabinet updates on Gati Shakti's rollout milestones will be closely watched as indicators of how deeply the 'whole of government' vision has been operationalised beyond the central level.

India's presentation at VivaTech 2026 also sets the stage for potential bilateral conversations with European partners on geospatial data standards and digital infrastructure cooperation, areas where India has been seeking to deepen engagement with the European Union.