Bhubaneswar: Odisha Space Application Centre (ORSAC) has made the way for space based surveillance and imagery based remote sensing data in the sectors like forest, agriculture, mining, irrigation, land records, water resources, urban property assessment and natural resources.

This was known from 43rd Governing Body Meeting of ORSAC held under the Chairmanship of Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra in State Secretariat today.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ORASC Prafulla Kumar Mallick presented the updates for discussion. Chief Secretary Mahapatra urged various departments to make use of the data generated by ORSAC for project monitoring and more accuracy in delivery of services.

Mahapatra also directed ORSAC to emphasize more on citizen-centric applications. It must focus on identifying formation of Islands, shoreline dynamics, capacity of sand quarry, expansion of peri-urban areas, town development mapping, he said.

The CEO Mallick appraised that during Covid pandemic days, ORSAC had developed web based GIS to help inbound migrant workers to locate their TMCs and mapping of Covid cases at Gram Panchayat levels. He also said that various Map API service developed by ORSAC helps to provide various GIS information as required by many departments to build their third party applications.

ORSAC is to sign an MoU with IIT, Kanpur to establish a regional GEODATIC Centre in the field of GNSS based Geodesy, Plate Tectonic Movement monitoring and Geoinformatics. The said centre will be of first of its kind in Eastern India. Another MoU will be signed shortly with ISRO’s Regional Remote Sensing Centre-East, Kolkata for collaborative works on Hyperspectral Remote Sensing, Mallick informed.

ORSAC has successfully developed the applications for land and forest location, Integrated Wildlife Management System, Odisha Irrigation Information System, Plot Level Validation of Paddy Crop Using Remote Sensing and GIS and Vehicle Tracking System for mineral carrying vehicles among others.

Governing Body also approved the proposal of filling of base level vacant posts in scientific, technical and administrative cadres.

Water Resources Additional Chief Secretary Anu Garg, Rural Development and I&PR Principal Secretary Sanjay Kumar Singh, Science & Technology Secretary Bhaskar Jyoti Sarma, Scientist KM Reddy from ISRO, Kolkata Regional Remote Sensing Centre-East DGM Suvarna Pathak, ORSAC CEO Mallick and Senior Scientist Pramod Kumar Parida along with other senior officers were present.