SHILLONG: The North Eastern Council has started a Space Based Information Kiosk (SBIK) at its secretariat in the city. The kiosk, which is a “unique initiative” of the council, was inaugurated by NEC secretary Ram Muivah on Tuesday. Addressing media persons after the inaugural function, Muivah said the programme was executed by the North Eastern Space Application Centre in collaboration with the State Remote Sensing Application Centres of the NE regions to showcase the capability of space technology inputs for developmental planning activities through a single window system. He said the initiative will strengthen the planning and monitoring mechanisms of the projects funded by the NEC and other organisations of the DoNER Ministry and various central government departments in the region.
SBIK has information on land use land cover, wetlands, wastelands, forest working plan, land degradation map, roads, drainages and settlements, soil map of each state, groundwater prospect map, wetlands infrastructure, inputs for disaster managements support programme etc which are derived using space technology.
He further added that SBIK will be installed in all the line departments in the NE region for maximum utilisation of space technology inputs for developmental planning activities.