AN EVALUATION OF MULTI TIER APPROACH TOWARDS CAPACITY BUILDING AND INSTITUTIONAL STRENGTHENING THROUGH APPLICATION OF GEO SPATIAL TECHNOLOGY IN PURVIEW OF AMRUT SCHEME

Many initiatives around the world are emphasising to strengthen the capacities of civil society and local governments to build resilience towards the context of urban planning. The Indian cities are experiencing rapid growth with share of country’s urban population increasing from 27% in 2001 to 32% in 2011. Majority of this growth has taken place in an unplanned and haphazard manner, the ill-effects of which are manifested in the form of poor quality of urban life. In order to ensure a planned development, the Govt. of India has launched the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) Mission which has a sub-scheme on ‘Formulation of GIS Based Master Plan for AMRUT cities’.In order to Achieve these ambitions, and realising the potential for cities to contribute effectively to addressing the challenges of development, will require new skills and competencies towards technological advancements and their application within individual households, urban communities, formal civil society, and municipal governments. To this end, North Eastern Space Applications Centre (NESAC), Umiam, Meghalaya in association with Town &amp; Country Planning Organization, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Govt. of India, initiated the training programme on “Formulation of GIS Based Master Plans”. The training programmes inculcates on the use of GIS and Remote sensing techniques for the formulation of Master Plans through a Tier based Approach with a vision to entrench existing relationships and to achieve more transformative change that meets the needs of all urban residents.</p

Evaluation of computerized health management information system for primary health care in rural India

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Comprehensive Rural Health Services Project Ballabgarh, run by All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi has a computerized Health Management Information System (HMIS) since 1988. The HMIS at Ballabgarh has undergone evolution and is currently in its third version which uses generic and open source software. This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a computerized Health Management Information System in rural health system in India.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The data for evaluation were collected by in-depth interviews of the stakeholders i.e. program managers (authors) and health workers. Health Workers from AIIMS and Non-AIIMS Primary Health Centers were interviewed to compare the manual with computerized HMIS. A cost comparison between the two methods was carried out based on market costs. The resource utilization for both manual and computerized HMIS was identified based on workers' interviews.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There have been no major hardware problems in use of computerized HMIS. More than 95% of data was found to be accurate. Health workers acknowledge the usefulness of HMIS in service delivery, data storage, generation of workplans and reports. For program managers, it provides a better tool for monitoring and supervision and data management. The initial cost incurred in computerization of two Primary Health Centers was estimated to be Indian National Rupee (INR) 1674,217 (USD 35,622). Equivalent annual incremental cost of capital items was estimated as INR 198,017 (USD 4213). The annual savings is around INR 894,283 (USD 11,924).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The major advantage of computerization has been in saving of time of health workers in record keeping and report generation. The initial capital costs of computerization can be recovered within two years of implementation if the system is fully operational. Computerization has enabled implementation of a good system for service delivery, monitoring and supervision.</p

OPERATIONAL REMOTE SENSING SERVICES IN NORTH EASTERN REGION OF INDIA FOR NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT, EARLY WARNING FOR DISASTER RISK REDUCTION AND DISSEMINATION OF INFORMATION AND SERVICES

North Eastern Region (NER) of India comprising of eight states considered to be most unique and one of the most challenging regions to govern due to its unique physiographic condition, rich biodiversity, disaster prone and diverse socio-economic characteristics. Operational Remote Sensing services increased manifolds in the region with the establishment of North Eastern Space Applications Centre (NESAC) in the year 2000. Since inception, NESAC has been providing remote sensing services in generating inventory, planning and developmental activities, and management of natural resources, disasters and dissemination of information and services through geo-web services for NER. The operational remote sensing services provided by NESAC can be broadly divided into three categories viz. natural resource planning and developmental services, disaster risk reduction and early warning services and information dissemination through geo-portal services. As a apart of natural resources planning and developmental services NESAC supports the state forest departments in preparing the forest working plans by providing geospatial inputs covering entire NER, identifying the suitable culturable wastelands for cultivation of silkworm food plants, mapping of natural resources such as land use/land cover, wastelands, land degradation etc. on temporal basis. In the area of disaster risk reduction, NESAC has initiated operational services for early warning and post disaster assessment inputs for flood early warning system (FLEWS) using satellite remote sensing, numerical weather prediction, hydrological modeling etc.; forest fire alert system with actionable attribute information; Japanese Encephalitis Early Warning System (JEWS) based on mosquito vector abundance, pig population and historical disease intensity and agriculture drought monitoring for the region. The large volumes of geo-spatial databases generated as part of operational services are made available to the administrators and local government bodies for better management, preparing prospective planning, and sustainable use of available resources. The knowledge dissemination is being done through online web portals wherever the internet access is available and as well as offline space based information kiosks, where the internet access is not available or having limited bandwidth availability. This paper presents a systematic and comprehensive study on the remote sensing services operational in NER of India for natural resources management, disaster risk reduction and dissemination of information and services, in addition to outlining future areas and direction of space applications for the region