bengaluru early on april 12 the indian space research organisation isro put into space a new satellite under the indian regional navigation satellite system irnss also called navic adding to the existing constellation of six fully operational satelliteswith the launch of seven satellites isros aim of giving india its own version of the global positioning system gps was realised and the navic is very much operational however indigenously developed systems to tap data from this constellation and to take it to lakhs of indians through a variety of applications are not yet readywhile a bengalurubased firm accord software and systems private limited along with isro developed technology that can receive signals from the irnss satellites compute location and also decode its broadcast message as early as 2016 it is only useful for agencies and organisations also isro has already developed a micro chipset to be used for navigation purpose and designed a miniaturised version of the micro chipset to be used in navigation devices the space agency is also working on chipsets for very small navigation deviceshowever the industry is yet to mass produce these receivers and chipsets given that there is no apparent demand as most users prefer gpsalso technology as seamless as the ones used to tap gps is not yet ready and isro chairman s sivan has reiterated that it is now for the industry to make the best use of the applications the constellation can provide the irnss provides applications like alerts to fishermen helping security agencies track and follow and a set of wide range of applications in science road transports aviation geophysics financial services survey and mapping et alread also how us govt sparked need for a desigpsalthough the centre and local governments are already using this technology to provide alerts to fishermen multiple pilot studies are ongoing in states like tamil nadu and the indian air force iaf is committed to using it in its fighter the uses of irnss is yet to reach the daily lives of citizensand one of the biggest challenge being faced is to convince mobile phone makers to replace the gps chipsets they install in phones with those that can tap irnss signals accord and a few other stakeholders are working on chipsets that can be put inside a mobile phoneexperts pointed out that since most mobile phones get hardware from china where it is mass produced for phones that are eventually used by people across the globe convincing firms to produce separate batches for india may impact the cost prompting mobile phone companies to retain gpsin fact in march this year a cag report criticised the government for not being able to make navic completely operational although the space segment is ready the cag observed navic remains nonoperational because the ground segment is not ready the cag feared that this may render the satellite idle