Dr Jitendra chairs joint Ministerial meeting, proposes ‘National Geospatial Data Repository’

Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh chairing a joint meeting of all the Science Ministries & Departments, at Prithvi Bhavan, New Delhi on Saturday.
Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh chairing a joint meeting of all the Science Ministries & Departments, at Prithvi Bhavan, New Delhi on Saturday.

Excelsior Correspondent

NEW DELHI, Aug 10: Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh proposes a “National Geospatial Data Repository” and PPP model today while chairing a joint meeting of all the Science Ministries and Departments of Government of India today at Prithvi Bhavan, here.
Addressing the meeting, Dr. Singh instructed the Department of Space, Department of Science and Technology and Ministry of Earth Sciences to create a unified Geospatial interface for utilisation of industry and StartUp ecosystem in order to create innovative and indigenous products for the welfare of farmers, rural artisans and others.
The Minister emphasised on seamless connection of Geo-ICT infrastructure. He also shared the Mantra of sustainable ecosystem based on pooling of knowledge and resources in collaboration with the non-governmental sectors in PPP mode.
He highlighted the importance of early industry linkage and multiplication of benefits for common people when initiatives like these achieve scale and volume. He also assured that all the departments under Ministry will act in coordination to achieve the common objective.
One of the highlights of the meeting was the review of the month-long National Space Day celebration and main event on August 23 at the Bharat Mandapam. He also took stock of the other important events in the coming days.
Singh also took stock of the progress on the proposed “Vigyan Shakti” portal and gave some insightful remarks based on his experience regarding the scientific portals .
The Unified Web repository of Indian Science and Technology being made live and collection of feedback was shared with the Minister. The department also seeked his guidance of further integration and improvement of the portal to become a single nodal joint for all scientific departments.
He reviewed the present status of ‘One common portal’ for all kinds of research under Dept. of Biotechnology.
Dr. A.K. Sood, Principal Scientific Advisor to Government of India; Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Secretary, DST; Dr. Rajesh Gokhale, Secretary, Biotechnology; Ravi Chandran, Secretary Earth Sciences, Dr. N. Kalaiselvi, DG, CSIR were present for the meeting.
Dr. S. Somanath, Chairman ISRO joined the meeting online.