INAUGURATION: (From left) Brig. N.R. Ananth, director, KGDC, Survey Of India; Anup K. Pujari, Principal Secretary, Department of Science and Technology; V. Jayaraman, director, EOS, ISRO; and Brig. Girish Kumar, Deputy Surveyor-General, Survey of Ind ia, Dehradun, at the workshop on geoinformatics in Bangalore on Tuesday. — Photo: K. Murali Kumar

Bangalore: "With geoinformatics, we can take Bangalore forward not by inches, but by miles," said Anup K. Pujari, Principal secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Information Technology and Biotechnology.

He was speaking after inaugurating a workshop on geoinformatics here on Tuesday. The workshop was organised by the Karnataka State Remote Sensing Applications Centre (KSRSAC).

Dr. Pujari said there was a lot of demand for people trained in geoinformatics. The job potential was enormous, as private and public sector companies, industries and municipal administrations were trying to simplify and systematise their sphere of development.

Adding value

"We must use it to add value to the State and the country. However, we must be cost conscious about the projects that we take up and make sure that it is of some use to the public," he said.

He also promised, on behalf of the Government, to extend support to the M.Tech (geoinformatics) programme offered by the KSRSAC.

V. Jayaraman, director of Earth Observation System, National Natural Resources Management Systems, Regional Remote Sensing Service Centres, Indian Space Research Organisation, said geoinformatics added muscle to the science and technology sector. "The applications are enormous. We can use it to even map the entire world and collect valuable geodata. A major portion of the satellites that will be launched over the next 15 to 20 years will strengthen the field of geoinformatics," he said.

Brigadier Girish Kumar, Deputy Surveyor-General, Survey of India, Dehradun, said that with the Union Government's new mapping policy, private parties could now have an important role to play. "The market is opening up and people trained in geoinformatics can help analyse the data for proper planning of our cities," he said.

Brig. Kumar said that the Government has now welcomed private-public partnerships in the area of mapping. "The country is waking up and has realised the need for geoinformatics. However, a few security issues have to be sorted out," he added.

Brig. N.R. Ananth, director, of KGDC, Survey of India, spoke. H. Honne Gowda, director, KSRSAC, welcomed the gathering, while T.R. Sreedhara Murthy, coordinator of the M.Tech programme, proposed a vote of thanks.

The inaugural function was followed by lectures on `Satellite sensors' by Dr. Jayaraman and `Photogrammetry - current and future trends' by Brig. Kumar. Presentations were made by the outgoing M.Tech students on their projects.

M.Tech programme

The programme, which is the first of its kind in the State, was started in September 2004 by the KSRSAC in collaboration with Visvesvaraya Technological University and the Survey of India. The two-year semester system programme addresses industry requirements and includes project works and industrial training.

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