NEWS: Karnataka teams with ISRO for communication network

[Frederick Noronha <fred@bytesforall.org>]

Karnataka teams with ISRO for communication network

by Imran Qureshi, India Abroad News Service

Bangalore, Jan 23 - Karnataka has become the first state in the country to
sign up with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for the
establishment of a space-based communication network that will be used for
education, health, e-governance, planning and development.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the state government and ISRO,
signed Monday, formalizes an already existing arrangement of mapping natural
resources for development in areas as diverse as watershed project
monitoring and evaluation to development of an information technology (IT)
corridor in India's IT capital and rural health (telemedicine) and school
network using the INSAT (geo-stationery spacecraft) system.

"This is the first state with which we have signed the MoU. It is a very
focused space-based program of action. We have now converted the Karnataka
remote sensing center into a space applications center. We have also posted
a senior officer from ISRO to head the center," ISRO chairman K. Kasturi
Rangan said soon after the signing ceremony in the presence of Chief
Minister S.M. Krishna.

"The ISRO has already completed, in the last 10 months since Krishna took
the initiative, to map 30 percent of the 36,000 water bodies in the state
and the complete atlas would be ready by the end of 2001," he said. The
mapping of ground water prospects would be ready by 2002, he said

Mapping of water bodies and drinking water prospects is significant because
after Rajasthan, Karnataka is the second state to have some of the largest
arid zones in the country. "And, providing drinking water is our
government's top priority. We want to provide 55 liters of potable water to
every citizen of Karnataka," Krishna said.

But, this is not all. By establishing a natural resources information system
(NRIS), Karnataka will be able to plan not only its resources and programs
for implementation at district level, but also at the sub-district and
village level. An experimental mapping in the most backward of districts in
the state, Bijapur, has already been completed.

"The mapping of the IT corridor in south Bangalore would be of great help to
the Jerong Corporation of Singapore which has been chosen by the state
government to implement the corridor project," said Karnataka's IT
secretary, Vivek Kulkarni, who signed the MoU on behalf of Karnataka with
K.R. Sridhara Murthy, scientific secretary, ISRO.

"The mapping of the IT corridor would be completed by March 2001," Rangan
added. -- India Abroad News Service