Title: ‘Yuktdhara’: India’s Geospatial Planning Portal for Geo-MGNREGA

Thumbnail: ‘Yuktdhara Portal’
Assisting Gram Panchayats across India

Today, a map is no longer something you fold up or put in your pockets. It can be used for global good with technologies like GPS and GIS…that can accurately collect, store, retrieve and display vast amounts of information in a spatial context.

Catapulting on these technologies, Union Minister of State of Department of Space Jitendra Singh has launched a new geospatial planning portal “Yukt-dhara”.

The portal integrates a wide variety of spatial information contents to enable a holistic approach towards planning using open-source Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools. Subsequent to pan Indian initiative of geo-tagging assets created under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

Further, the program will facilitate planning of new MGNREGA assets using Remote Sensing and GIS based information. The platform will serve as a repository of assets in the form of Geotags created under various national rural development programmes i.e. MGNREGA, Integrated Watershed Management Programme, Per Drop More Crop and Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana etc., along with field photographs.

The Department of Rural Development has left no stone unturned in emphasizing the need for geospatial approach in planning, through polit level capacity building and handholding for state functionaries.

Speaking at the launch of “Yuktahara” Union Minister of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj, Giriraj Singh said that it is definitely a culmination of untiring joint efforts of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Ministry of Rural development, which made towards realising a Government to Government service for rural planning in support of decentralized decision making.

Further, India’s premier space organisation ISRO’s Geoportal Bhuvan with its rich information base has been hand holding the portal with satellite images and analytical capabilities, —Bhuvan, in fact, has become a de-facto geospatial platform for number of developmental planning activities in the country.

With a variety of thematic layers, multi-temporal high resolution earth observation data with analysis tools, Yuktdhara-based plans will be used by grassroot functionary, which will be verified by appropriate authorities for relevance and resource allocation. Thus ensuring quality of plan and enabling a long term monitoring of the assets created over the years.

The Customisation of Bhuvan along with the Ministry of Rural Development will build a Geo MGNREGA database– which will be noteworthy and a first of its kind massive exercise in the whole world.