Survey of India and Tele Atlas Kalyani India Announce Strategic Agreement, Paving Way for Public Distribution of India Maps

Pune – The Survey of India, today announced that the Government of India had formally approved the strategic agreement between the National surveying and mapping organization Survey of India (SOI) and Tele Atlas Kalyani India Ltd., formerly Kalyani Net Ventures Ltd. (KNVL) - a joint venture between the Kalyani Group and Tele Atlas. With this agreement Tele Atlas Kalyani India becomes the first Value Added Reseller (VAR) of India’s digital maps. The agreement allows Tele Atlas Kalyani India to release the first Survey of India-approved digital maps and custom map content within the public domain for commercial use in a range of navigation and location-based solutions in the mobile, internet, automotive, personal navigation system and enterprise markets.

The current release of navigable maps created by Tele Atlas Kalyani India are the first ever to be screened and approved for public release by the SOI, in full compliance with the regulations of the Government of India and the provisions of the National Mapping Policy.

“This agreement marks a major milestone in implementing the National Map Policy and I am excited about the prospects of the growth of the Geospatial industry in India that this will enable,” noted the Surveyor General. “The significant efforts of Tele Atlas Kalyani India in pursuing the policy and its work with SOI have resulted in the first approved digital maps of India, and we look forward to the new business these efforts will yield across the related industries.”

“Tele Atlas is committed to the growth of navigation technologies in India and to ensuring that our customers have high-quality digital maps and content to develop successful navigation and location-based solutions and applications,” said Mark Steele, COO Tele Atlas Asia Pacific. “We are pleased to collaborate with the SOI to meet the growing market demand for navigation, map and location-based services and technologies.”

Tele Atlas Kalyani India is a leading map provider in India serving the consumer markets, business-to-business and business-to-government market segments. Designed to be fully aligned with Tele Atlas’ global map offering and seamlessly integrated in Tele Atlas’ Asia Pacific regional data offering, the first product in the standard Tele Atlas product specifications was released in the third quarter of 2008, covering all major metropolitan areas and the full coverage of the national and state highway networks of India. Subsequent database products are planned to include additional urban centers and rich points of interest (POI) content as well as an extensive range of enhancement products such as 3D landmarks and detailed city maps.

Survey Of India (SOI)
The Survey Of India, the National Survey and Mapping Organisation under the Department of Science & Technology, is the oldest scientific department of the Government of India. Under the new National Map Policy, promulgated in 2005, the Survey of India has a nodal role in liberalising the dissemination of map data to the public domain. One of the key elements of this policy is the Public Private Partnership program to enable the objectives of the Map Policy to provide, maintain and allow access to the National Topographic Database (NTDB) of the SOI conforming to national standards and to promote the use of geospatial knowledge and intelligence through partnerships and other mechanisms by all sections of the society and work towards a knowledge-based society.

About Tele Atlas
Tele Atlas delivers the digital maps and dynamic content that power many of the world’s most essential navigation and location-based services (LBS). Through a combination of its own products and partnerships, Tele Atlas offers map coverage of more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. The company was founded in 1984 and has more than 2,000 staff at offices in 24 countries around the world. Today, Tele Atlas maps are developed with the insight of a community of millions of GPS system users worldwide, who are adding to the company’s unmatched network of sources to track and validate changes in real time, and deliver the best digital maps and dynamic content. For more information, visit www.teleatlas.com. Tele Atlas is a subsidiary of TomTom N.V.

About Kalyani Group
Kalyani Group is a leading Indian industrial conglomerate today with interests in forgings, automotive components, Engineering Quality steel, Information Systems and other niche segments such as non conventional energy & heavy engineering components. The Group turnover is $2.1 billion and market capitalization of its listed entities exceeds $5 billion. The Group’s manufacturing presence spans six countries across three continents viz. Asia, North America & Europe. The group has joint venture relationships with some of the world’s leading players such as ArvinMeritor, USA, Carpenter Technology Corporation, USA, Hayes Lemmerz, USA, Gerdau SA, Brazil and FAW Corporation, China. The group places strong emphasis on technology, customer relationships and continuous & sustained development of its over 10,000 strong global human resources.