Village Resource Centre for Kodumon

REMOTE SENSING: ISRO officials displaying the high resolution satellite maps on the land use pattern and topography of Kodumon panchayat at a workshop organised by the Saktibhadra Cultural Centre at Kodumon on Thursday.

PATHANAMTHITTA: The Saktibhadra Cultural Centre, a Kodumon-based non-governmental organisation in the district, is planning to set up a Village Resource Centre (VRC) at Kodumon with technical collaboration and guidance from the Regional Remote Sensing Service Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), according to the centre’s chairman, Kodumon G. Gopinathan Nair.

The centre organised a workshop at Kodumon on Thursday as part of the proposed VRC. P.G. Diwakar, who heads the ISRO facility in Bangalore, and K. Ganesh Raj from it were the main speakers.

Displaying high-resolution satellite images showing the land-use pattern, water resources and green cover of Kodumon village, the two experts stressed the need for making people aware of the advantages of remote sensing and its social applications, especially in the process of rural development.

The proposed VRC is aimed at bringing the benefits of space technology directly to communities at the grassroots level, promoting a single-window delivery of need-based services in the areas of education, health, nutrition, weather, environment, agriculture and alternative livelihoods, Dr. Diwakar said.

According to him, in a country like India, where agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, the real impact of space technology is in the farm sector and ISRO has taken up several participatory projects aimed at improving the productivity of land. The data from high-resolution satellite images are being effectively used for mapping geographical features and preparing village community database.

Dr. Diwakar said the terrain maps were integrated with data on rainfall pattern, socio-economic conditions and vulnerable groups to form valuable inputs for watershed management and community-level resource development plans.

The very concept of VRC is to enable the rural community to participate in knowledge-based economic development by providing local specific information at the village level. The experts handed over a set of satellite images of Kodumon panchayat to the trust leaders on the occasion.

Mr. Gopinathan Nair said the centre would submit a detailed project report, with a rough cost estimate, of the proposed resource centre.