Telangana’s Bhadradri Kothagudem District Wins Two National GIS Awards for Open-Source Innovation.
Awards
In July 2025, Telangana's Bhadradri Kothagudem district achieved national recognition by securing both the 'National Geospatial Practitioner Award' and the 'Open Source GIS Cohort Award'.
- The awards were presented for the district’s pioneering application of Geographic Information System (GIS) in improving public services through open-source technologies, under the 'Open Source GIS Day' event hosted by IIT Bombay, Maharashtra.
- The recognition was given to Bhadradri Kothagudem District Collector Jitesh V. Patil, in the presence of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman Dr. A.S. Kiran Kumar, for successfully deploying GIS in government initiatives that impacted multiple sectors of public administration.
- The awards were part of the National Geospatial Awards 2025 (Edition Q2) organized jointly by IIT Bombay’s Free and Open Source Software for Education (FOSSEE) team and the Ministry of Education (MoE). These awards aim to honour effective GIS-based solutions implemented using free and open-source platforms to improve governance and service delivery.
Main Point :- (i) Bhadradri Kothagudem was specifically commended for its extensive use of GIS in sectors such as disaster risk management, inter-departmental coordination, water resource tracking, agricultural mapping, and rural development planning. The implementation helped improve the efficiency of local government operations and decision-making.
(ii) The event also featured recognition for institutions like Sri Konda Laxman Telangana Horticultural University (SKLTHU), which received the Best University Award for its contribution to geospatial education, and the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), which was honoured for its research on marine GIS applications under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
(iii) These awards underscore the growing importance of open-source geospatial technology in transforming public service delivery and democratizing data access. Telangana’s success story, particularly from Bhadradri Kothagudem, serves as a model for other districts aiming to adopt cost-effective, scalable GIS tools for multi-sector governance improvements.
About Telangana
Chief minister: Revanth Reddy
Governor: Jishnu Dev Varma
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