Question

<!--td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}--> Space technology can be the powerful enabler of the holistic and rapid development of rural areas. Examine.

Answer 1

Introduction:
Space technology has the potential to be a powerful enabler, providing a variety of vital inputs for the holistic and rapid development of rural areas especially villages. India is among the world leaders in developing end-to-end capability in satellite remote sensing and communication. Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has made immense progress in building state of the art space infrastructure such as the Indian National Satellite (INSAT) for communication and the Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites for earth observation. India has been a champion in demonstrating the use of space technology for societal good.

Body:
Rural India and its development

Lifestyle:
Economy: In India, rural life is essentially agricultural. Other economic activities being animal keeping, small-scale plantation, and related activities.
Settlement: The settlement pattern consists of villages or homesteads.
Social Life: It depicts greater interdependence among people leading to a more deeply rooted community life.
Rural Development: Rural development means the overall development of rural areas with a vision to improve the quality of life of rural people.
It is a holistic, multidimensional concept which encompasses the development of agriculture and allied activities, village and cottage industries, socio-economic infrastructure, community services and facilities, and most important the human resources development in rural areas.

Issues affecting Rural India:
Issues faced by agriculture: Improper use of fertilisers and pesticides, less awareness among farmers regarding environmental changes and use of latest technologies, lower-income of farmers force them to remain more or less traditional.
Lack of basic necessity: Around 700 million Indians living in rural areas and far-flung villages lack even basic services such as electricity, sanitation, and water.
Digital illiteracy and divide: They suffer a lack of knowledge-enhancing technologies such as telecommunication services.
Lack of infrastructure development: despite huge development there is still a lack transport, health, education infrastructure .
Lack of disaster planning at village level: the lowest unit of Indian disaster planning is district, it is not specific to rural India.
Lack of job opportunities: less infrastructure, less basic necessities discourage industry to set up near these areas, thus creating less job opportunities and push migration from rural to urban areas leading to congested cities.
In order to bring about the development and enhance the quality of lifestyle of the villagers, a concrete policy with regard to communication support must be formulated and pursued.

Significance of space technology:
Space technology could be harnessed by the local bodies to create an information base and for providing requisite assistance and service. The high-resolution earth observation images provide village-centric, geo-referenced spatial information for the rightful management of natural resources, such as land use/ land cover, terrain morphology, surface water and groundwater, soil characteristics, environment and infrastructure.
Village resource centre
The VRC programme aims to disseminate the portfolio of services emanating from the space systems as well as other Information Technology (IT) tools, directly to the rural communities.
VRCs are providing digital connectivity for videoconferencing and information transfer with knowledge centers and specialty healthcare providers enabled via INSAT series of satellites.
Spatial information on natural resources generated using Indian remote sensing satellite data; a host of information pertaining to management of natural resources and socio-economic relevance; and facilities for primary healthcare services and distance education.
Tele-education: It is used for providing vocational training at local level. The aim is skill development and capacity building to catalyse livelihood support in rural areas; supplementary teaching to rural children and adult education.
Tele-healthcare: It can aid in both preventive and curative health care at primary level. For example, The Telemedicine system at VRCs consists of customised medical software, with certain medical diagnostic instruments.
Land and Water Resources Management: Information on land and water resources collected from satellite images is organised in the Geographical Information System (GIS). These information are provided to the villagers through the VRC. The local farmers get the support of the skilled/ trained personnel managing VRCs, utilising this information for better management of their land resources.
Tele-fishery: VRCs located at coastal tracts have been given with near real time information on satellite derived Potential Fishing Zones (PFZ). Information pertaining to fisheries, aquaculture, etc., is also provided through VRCs as relevant.
e-Governance services: These services include information and guidance to local people on village oriented government schemes on agriculture, poverty alleviation, rural employment, social safety nets and other basic entitlements, animal husbandry and livestock related, micro-finance related, etc.
Weather Services: Immediate and long term weather forecasts, at local level; and agrometeorology advisory services are being enabled.

Projects taken up by government:
Satellite Communication
Gram SAT satellite connects rural development ministry with 1100 panchayats. In order to get feedback on the various rural development schemes under operation in the state and to gain an insight into the problems.The also aims at enhancing the awareness of the beneficiaries on their entitlement and various processes involved for availing the benefit of the schemes. This initiative is part of the ministry's effort to bring about transparency and efficiency in implementation of its various schemes.
NAVIC: India’s own GPS, will provide more accurate data to cities and rural areas both, thus it will aid in narrowing the technology divide.
For education: EDUSAT’, is primarily intended for school, college and higher levels of education to support both curricula based as well as vocational education. Many important institutions such as the IGNOU, UGC, IITs, and many State Education Departments and Universities are using the EDUSAT network.

For health and Medicine:
Diagnostic apparatus like ECG, X-ray and pathology Microscope/Camera are connected through a Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) system and controlled by the Network Hub Station of ISRO.
Presently India has 377 tele-medicine nodes consisting of 320 remote/ district/ medical college/ mobile hospitals connected to 57 super-specialty hospitals in different cities through satellites
Disaster Management Support: ISRO has taken up the program of Disaster Management Support (DMS) Programme to provide timely support and services from aero-space systems, both imaging and communications, towards efficient management of disasters in the country.
Remote sensing applications: Resourcesat, Cartosat, Oceansat etc which provide required data for carrying out various projects. Some of the important projects carried out in the country include Groundwater Prospects Mapping under Drinking Water Mission, Forecasting Agricultural output using Space, Agro-meteorology and Land based observations (FASAL), Forest Cover/Type Mapping, Grassland Mapping, Biodiversity Characterization, Snow &amp; Glacier Studies, Land Use/Cover mapping, Coastal Studies, Coral and Mangroves Studies, Wasteland Mapping, geotagging in MGNREGA and PM Awas yojana, etc
SVAMITVA scheme: Svamitva refers to Survey of villages and mapping with improvised technology in village areas. It was launched on panchayati raj day 2020. It aims at providing rural India the right to document their residential properties so that they can use their property for economic purposes.

Conclusion:
Thus space technology plays an important role in the holistic development of rural India. It can help in achieving the goal of doubling farmers income and can generate rural employment and empower rural citizens.