By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: Central Sericulture Board (CSB) chairperson, Ishita Roy, has called upon the state governments to use remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping for Sericulture development as mandatory tools while drawing a road map for expansion and identification of the potential areas for development of sericulture in their respective States.
“I am pretty confident that the state governments would be greatly benefitted by using the GIS mapping and remote sensing while drawing the roadmap for expansion of the sericulture activities,” Ms Roy said via video conferencing from New Delhi during a national workshop on Applications of Remote Sensing and GIS in Sericulture Development jointly organised by the North Eastern Space Application Centre (NESAC) and CSB here on Friday.
While informing that GIS mapping and remote sensing has an accuracy of about 90 to 92 per cent, she said that it is more or less confirmed that the areas which would be identified through this exercise would have huge potential for expansion of sericulture.
“I would only like to urge upon NESAC to provide detailed information about the exact date when the exercise was done in the district of any particular states which has been identified. The main reason I am insisting for the exact date is that the condition of the area would be totally different if the GIS mapping and remote sensing was carried out few years back,” the CSB chairman said.
She also believed that the GIS mapping has a good future in the preparation of a road map for the development of the sericulture in the country.
Ms Roy admitted that the state governments would face the problem of funding while carrying out the exercise for expansion of sericulture activities as they are in the beginning of the 12th Five Year Plan.
“The Union Ministry of Textiles would be able to sanction the funds only by October and November. The funds would reach the respective state governments only by January 2013,” she added.
She said that state governments would have to arrange funds on their own from the State pool which would be refunded back once the Union Textile Ministry release the funds.
Meanwhile, NESAC director Dr S Sudhakar informed that the project titled ‘Applications of Remote Sensing and GIS in Sericulture Development’ was proposed by NESAC with the funding by CSB and Union Ministry of Textiles.
He said that the objectives of the present project are to map and identify the potential areas for development of silkworm food plants for mulberry and non-mulberry sericulture in the non-traditional States on a scale of 1:50,000.
“The second major objective of the project is to develop and implement a network of Sericulture Information Linkages and Knowledge System (SILKS) in 108 districts covering 24 states in the country” he said.
Dr Sudhakar informed that SILKS is a single window information and communication technology for the farmers while adding that the objectives of SILKS is to provide information, storage, value addition and supply of knowledge and advisory services to the farmers through internet and satellite based information.