The success of Chandrayaan-1 makes India only the sixth country in the world to send a spaceship to the moon.
And while the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) works towards putting a man on the moon next, it has been building up important capabilities off the public radar.
For instance, the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), an ISRO baby headquartered in Hyderabad. Armed with two modern aircraft for aerial remote sensing and data from a host of its own as well as foreign satellites, this ISRO centre is mapping invaluable data about our water resources, land use patterns, and mineral exploration prospects. NRSC?s large scale mapping capabilities enable it to survey our coastal resources, ecology and urban areas. In one of the exercises currently underway, all of India?s forests are being mapped digitally to generate data that can explain how our forests are becoming fragmented and the areas where this could trigger the worst repercussions. According to a senior scientist at the Centre, 70% of the mapping is done and the rest should be complete by March 2010.
This, like other NRSC works such as monitoring seasonal variations on a daily basis, would throw up a wealth of actionable information and could help policymakers immensely in redesigning development and relief schemes to ensure better targeting. As the PM said, scientific knowledge ?enables us? to improve several facets of our social economy?but the benefits will only accrue if the knowledge is put to work. State and central governments don?t always appreciate or harness the capabilities that centres like NRSC have built up over the years. The expert group on rural indebtedness appointed by the PM to examine the extent and gravity of farmers? distress, following his visit to suicide-stricken Vidarbha in 2006, had called for an advanced crop surveillance mechanism for forecasting the prospects of drought.
To its shock, it found that the NRSC had already been making drought assessments based on satellite data at the district level for 10 drought-prone districts and at the mandal/taluka level for three states?Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra?for at least a couple of years before the farmer suicides became headline news.
During the crop season, the NRSC would send the month?s forecast to the ministry of agriculture and state relief commissioners. But the information remained in those offices, rather than be released to the general public, or even the immediate farm communities that could use it to decide crop strategies.
The UPA government has been talking about ushering in a new green revolution. The NRSC data can help farmers in this context by giving out early warnings. And subsequent statistical validation of its forecasts could be immensely useful for designing a better crop insurance product.
UPA?s generous farm loan waiver (now worth Rs 66,569 crore) stemmed from the rural indebtedness panel?s recommendations to the PM. But the panel had explicitly pushed for a holistic action plan to manage our farms better in order for such a waiver to be productive in the long run.
It also found serious lacunae in the implementation of the PM?s original Vidarbha package?for reasons not too different from the ones plaguing our internal security front?multiplicity of departments involved. The government should place an action taken report on the panel?s suggestions, especially since most of them?like disseminating the NRSC?s forecasts?are easy to implement.
Agriculture is one sector where market-based reforms haven?t taken off as expected anywhere in the world, one of the reasons for the global food crisis in the first half of 2008. Of course, the global financial crisis that erupted in the latter half of the year ensured that food prices are no longer a source of concern. And while the credit crisis will keep the UPA?s managers busy till 2009-10, ignoring the kisan could prove costly?not just because it?s election year, but also the rural economy is still booming and could help India tide over the global slowdown.
vikas.dhoot@expressindia.com