Promoting Space Technology for Development and Governance in NER of India

The North Eastern Space Applications Centre (NESAC),an autonomous organisation under Department of Space (DOS), Government of India was set up at Umiam, Shillong, Meghalaya on September 5, 2000 with joint initiative of DOS and the North Eastern Council (NEC). Since its inception, the centre has provided dedicated service to the North Eastern Region (NER) of India comprising of eight states viz. Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura. The centre was set up with a vision to play the catalytic role in holistic development of NER of India by providing Space Science and Technology support on natural resource management, infrastructure planning, healthcare, education, emergency communication, disaster management support, and space and atmospheric science research

NESAC has evolved as a unique centre by creating infrastructure and taking up projects for applications of space science and technology in all possible sectors. It has made its presence felt very strongly in the region by providing critical space based inputs in planning and developmental process of all NE states. Today, through several web-portals and standalone kiosks at state and district level, NESAC ensures that the entire space based database generated at NESAC and in other centres are available to the decision and policy makers. The centre also makes special effort on capacity building and space science popularisation in NER. The overall activities of NESAC are divided into Remote Sensing & Geographical Information System (RS & GIS) Applications, Satellite Communications Applications, Space and Atmospheric Science Research, and Disaster Management Support. They are discussed in detail in the following paragraphs:

RS & GIS Applications

The core activity of the centre is RS & GIS applications in Agriculture, Soil sciences, Forestry, Water resources, Geology, Infrastructure planning, Urban studies, health GIS, etc. and it has completed more than 100 projects in this area. While most of the projects focused on creation of thematic maps and database, development of new techniques, etc. a few projects were taken up exclusively to disseminate the data/information to the end user. The most significant among the projects are, early warning of outbreak of Japanese Encephalitis, RS and GIS inputs for forest working plan preparation for NE states, North Eastern District Resources Plan programme, database preparation for Natural Resources Data Bases (NRDB) & SIS-DP (Space based Information Support for Decentralised Planning) projects, etc. A national project on applications of RS and GIS in Sericulture development has also been completed for 108 districts covering 24 states in India. Sericulture Information Linkages and Knowledge System (SILKS) web portal developed under the project was awarded the National E-Governance award 2014-15 in the category of innovative use of GIS in e-governance. The centre coordinates with the State RS Applications Centres of NER and acts as a nodal centre for implementation of major national and regional programmes.

Improving Satellite Communication Infrastructure

Another very important area of activity is Satellite Communication applications and it is more significant because the NER of India is conventionally known to have poor connectivity. NESAC is implementing all key application projects of ISRO like Telemedicine, Tele-education, Village Resource Centre, communication support in disaster management etc. in NER. To bring all major space based communication services under one umbrella, ISRO has planned to demonstrate a single window delivery capability of several services like Telemedicine, Tele-education, E-governance, remote banking, extended mobile coverage, etc., as an integrated package catering to most of the needs of rural India. An Integrated Service Pilot Network is being set up by connecting a remote village named Umsaw in Meghalaya with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). NESAC with support from DECU, SAC have already installed the required communication system in the identified village to demonstrate the technology to PMO.

Research on Space and Atmospheric Science

The centre has set up a regional facility to conduct research on improving weather forecast, characterisation of aerosol and greenhouse gases, atmospheric boundary layer dynamics and to study their impact on regional weather and climate. The first ever land campaign along the east-west and north-south corridor of NER was conducted to understand the spatial distribution and consequent impact of aerosol on radiation budget over the region. The centre is also engaged in research to improve the accuracy of numerical weather forecast up to 48 hours to support forecasting flood and thunderstorm with actionable lead-time. To improve the surface observations, ISRO, through NESAC has established a network of 118 Automatic Weather Stations across NER and one S-band Doppler Weather Radar (DWR) at Cherrapunjee, Meghalaya. The data from the DWR shall improve flood early warning, thunderstorm and hailstorm nowcasting and several other applications.

Supporting Disaster Management

NER is one of the most disaster prone regions in India and of late, more attention has been given on efficient use of space technology for management of disasters. Flood Early Warning System (FLEWS) developed for forecasting flood in Brahmaputra and Barak valley in Assam covering 42 river basins, has been very effective with mean success rate of about 75% during 2009-2015 periods. With an objective to provide more coordinated service and single window delivery of all space based disaster management support, DOS took a new initiative and set up the North Eastern Regional node for Disaster Risk Reduction (NER-DRR) at NESAC. NER-DRR is mandated to support management of disasters like Floods, Forest Fire, Thunderstorms, Landslides, Drought, Earthquakes, and Health disaster. In addition to providing support during and post phases of disaster management, NER-DRR is focusing more on pre-disaster preparedness and early warning. Thunderstorm early warning has been done experimentally since 2014 and efforts are on for early warning of landslide, forest fire, and agricultural drought.