Agartala, Jul 26: The Tripura government has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the North East Space Application Centre (NESAC), Shillong, for 21 projects including disaster management and resource mapping, an official said on Tuesday.
NESAC Director, SP Agarwal and Tripura's Science, Technology and Environment secretary Pradip Kumar Chakravarty signed the MoU on Monday.
Of the 21 projects, the Centre has already approved 20 projects as part of promotion and transfer of technology to develop capacity building as well as resource mapping, Chakravarty told PTI.
The 20 approved projects include resource mapping of agriculture, horticulture, forest, land revenue and disaster management.
Chakravarty said resource mapping holds the key for formulating proper planning and coordination and the concerned department will benefit once the resource mapping of a particular segment is done.
"We are in the process of preparing resource mapping of patta lands allocated under the Forest Dwellers' Right Act. It will be beneficial to undertake any project be it agriculture or horticulture or anything else. Plans can be chalked out based on the availability of land and its present status", he explained.
Since Tripura is disaster prone, early warning of earthquake, flood and landslide will be developed in the state in collaboration with NESAC. "Early warning systems are important to mitigate any disaster. We will work together with NESAC to develop an early warning system so that the state could predict any disaster well before it takes place", he said.
Chakravarty further said the state space application centre will also be given more teeth to cater the future needs.
The Indian Space Resource Organization (ISRO) and North Eastern Council (NEC) will fund to implement all the 21 projects within the next three years. An amount of Rs 4.30 crore has been sanctioned for disaster management as resource mapping.
