Presenter : G S PUJAR

Type:  Oral

Integrated Watershed Management is accepted as key rural development paradigm in India. Upon prevalence of evident success stories in ameliorating degraded land and water scenarios across nation, Department of Land Resources, Government of India is in steadfast pursuit of watershed development involving participatory approach under IWMP. Recent revision of policy has integrated IWMP as vital component of nation’s flagship scheme PMKSY (Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana).  Towards establishing a transparent and explicit monitoring system for this initiative,  a combined ICT solution involving open source interface (called Srishti) as well as smart phone application (called Drishti) is implemented through Bhuvan Geoportal . Open source Geoserver based platform is in evolving customization to set up a multi-temporal high resolution image service coupled with real time inventory of watershed activities or assets. Point of Interests (POI) resulting from geotagging using smart phone app are being uploaded at higher degree of spatial accuracy (~ 5m).  Initial phase of geotagged inventory (using Version 1.0 Drishti) of various activities or structures used simple application incorporating geo-locationing, pair of photos and attribution related to the activity. With this about 2.5 lakh geotags were uploaded from State Level Nodal Agencies (SLNAs) following a detailed training of about 900 personnel, for the use of app. Natural color IRS high resolution images have been procured for about 5000 watershed projects across nation, so as to assess the changes brought about by conservation activities.  Mobile application was revised and upgraded from earlier version to include web based service of collected geotags on image interface so as to realize ground based monitoring of progress as well. Experience clearly showed that with right direction and persuasion in place for SLNAs, DoLR could achieve inventory of 4.1 lakh POIs across the country to evaluate the efficacy of the governance.