The State Government will create a fund to assist innovative persons and work towards encouraging a scientific atmosphere in the State.
Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said this after inaugurating the Uttarakhand Antariksh Bhawan, the new building of the Uttarakhand Space Application Centre (USAC) at Amwala in Dehradun on Monday. Rawat also inaugurated the Uttarakhand state geo-informatics meet 2020 and released the Uttarakhand atlas on the occasion. Rawat said that space technology can play an important role during emergency situations and also in issues related to land, water resources and forests. He said that a fund will be created for innovative persons to help those who are innovative but face financial crunch.
Speaking of identifying innovative persons in the state and drafting a plan for encouraging a scientific atmosphere in Vikram Sarabhai’s centenary year, he said that this will help raise awareness among youngsters and encourage inventions.
The former chairman of ISRO, AS Kiran Kumar said that today India is among the few nations which are adept in space technology. Due to this, the nation succeeded in saving thousands of lives from disasters like a super cyclone.
Addressing the gathering, the USAC director MPS Bisht informed that the centre will function as the main GIS hub for geospatial data being collected from all the districts.
The collected data will prove useful to the various administrators and policy makers in the state.
The various activities of USAC in different spheres including tourism, education, climate change, agro-forestry and disaster management will be operated from the Uttarakhand Antariksh Bhawan now, he added.
The minister of State Dhan Singh Rawat, MLAs Umesh Sharma ‘Kau’, Dilip Singh Rawat, Dhan Singh Negi, Mukesh Kohli and the science and technology secretary RK Sudhanshu were also among those present on the occasion.