Govt Will Use ISRO’s Geospatial Satellite Data To Enhance Rural Planning

Geospatial data generated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will now be used in government planning services. The space agency will share high-resolution data generated from its remote sensing satellites with the relevant ministries to take action on issues related to planning and execution.

The products and services can be directly assimilated into the planning process at grassroots levels. The data will help in rural planning across the country including egovernance services and optimisation of schools in the country.

“ISRO and Ministry of Panchayati Raj are working on creating an ecosystem for using high-resolution thematic data for better planning,” Uday Raj, Chief General Manager, Regional Centres and Project Director, Space-based Information Support for Decentralised Planning (SISDP), told ET.

According to ISRO, this is the first time that a thematic database (on 1:10,000 scale) with integrated high-resolution satellite data for planning is being made available for the entire landmass of India The space agency will be using its geoportal – Bhuvan Panchayat V-3.0 – for database visualisation, data analytics, generation of automatic reports, model-based products and services.

The initiative, which is part of the advanced SISDP project, is expected to benefit the gram panchayat members and other stakeholders to a large extent. 28 states will be using high-resolution satellite data to execute the planning.

According to SISDP, Earth observation plays a key role in community-driven management and acquires special importance in the context of decentralised planning. “Observations of the Earth system constitute critical input for advance understanding towards local planning by providing information, measurements and quantifications of natural or artificial phenomena,” it says.  The first phase of SISDP was completed in 2016-17.

Meanwhile, ISRO is also planning to build a mobile launchpad to help in launching its small satellite launch vehicle (SSLV) class of vehicles into space, ISRO chairman K Sivan had said earlier. The maiden test-flight of SSLV is due in the first quarter of 2020.

The project will be a part of the new spaceport proposed in Kulasekarapattinam, a town in the Tamil Nadu’s Tuticorin and ISRO will need an additional 2000 acres of land in the city. For the mobile launchpad project, ISRO has already requested INR 120 Cr from the central government and the process for land acquisition has also begun. The organisation is also reportedly looking to partner with private players for the development of its future rockets.

Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found here.