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IIM

NAGPUR

PGP 2016-18
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT,
NAGPUR
PREFACE

The report is aimed at presenting our understanding of Maharashtra Remote Sensing Applications
Centre (MRSAC) as an organisation considering its objectives, operations and effectiveness towards
fulfilling its goals. The description of the organisation in the subsequent sections is based on the interactions
with scientists, administrators and staff of MRSAC, printed & online portal information and observations we
made during our visit at the centre.

MRSAC is an autonomous institute, under Planning Dept. Govt. of Maharashtra which focuses on
developing Remote sensing and GIS Applications for various Central and Maharashtra state departments
helping them in planning and decision making. The report tries to explain the RS & GIS technology and
MRSAC connection with it, MRSAC structure and how it delivers projects and services.

We have also tried to present some suggestion based on our knowledge of the subject matter and
prevailing situation like one of the recommendation is increase the division of technical and non technical
duty of scientists to better utilise their expertise in research and projects, another improvement suggested is
to strive for achieving international standardisation as the organisation is very much in technical area where
standardisation is a mark of quality assurance. The recommendations were decided after deliberation and
discussion and are presented in the report for consideration of MRSAC.

KUMAR SUMEET
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The field immersion provided us a wonderful opportunity to be a part of Maharashtra
Remote Sensing Applications Centre for studying the organisation. The first interaction till the
last day at MRSAC has provided us with new horizons to explore and new dimensions to
measure its impact. Th
1. Introduction

The Maharashtra Remote Sensing Applications Centre MRSAC is a pioneer in the field of remote
sensing and GIS in Maharashtra. It has grown with time and technology and has now become indispensible
as planning facilitator of government for increasing transparency and policy effectiveness through spreading
of e-governance and providing data in digital that is difficult to represent using files and traditional methods.
It also helps to speed up the decision making process.

1.1 What is Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System


Remote sensing is described as science of collecting information of objects or land mass from
some distance, typically using satellites or aeroplanes. This process involves interaction between incident
radiation like EM Waves and target remote object like earth surface features(Forests, Country, State etc.) to
gather knowledge about it.

Geographic Information System(GIS) is described as a computer system for capturing, storing,


checking, and displaying data related to positions on Earths surface.

1.2 How is Remote Sensing performed


The satellites use passive or active sensor types based on presence or absence of source of stimulus
to remotely interact with the target object. The interaction between radiation and object helps in determining
characteristics of object being sensed for example vegetation absorbs Blue and Red but reflects Green. Water
transmits visible wavelength so reflection and absorption is low. Soil is consistent as its display i.e. brown
or red as they reflect only large wavelength visible waves. After interaction with target the energy is
captured by sensor, the response can be of 3 basic kinds

(I) Visible - passive sensors record the reflected sun light Blue, Green and Red are primary colours
of this spectrum.
(II) Thermal sensor capture heat generated by source no irradiance hence these are passive.
(III) Microwave -- these are emitted by antenna of satellite or aircraft and detected after reflection,
type of active sensing. These can be captured photographically or electronically. This whole
process encompasses Remote Sensing.

1.3 How is Geographical Information System built


Data can be from various sources such as satellites and in digital or tabular format E.g. land use
location of town, farms and forests and population in table which is put in the GIS. The GIS allows different
info to be put over single map, this is called data capturing. The next process involves aligning maps having
different scales to the same scale. Manipulation is an important step to bring different maps to a common
projection, different maps have different projection as transfer of earths curved surface on flat two
dimensions involves some unavoidable discrepancies such as choosing between either correct sizes or
correct shape each representing different projection. Different combinations can be made depending on the
data layers put together.

The above procedure help in combining data of very different types like population and drinking water
availability. It sometimes contains data that are not visible on the map unless we click like data of student
enrolled in a particular school at a particular location. The GIS data is very easy to understand visually and
applicable to various scenarios due to choice of various combination of layers available to superimpose over
one another.

1.4 Maharashtra in Remote Sensing and GIS Application

Maharashtra Remote Sensing Applications Centre (MRSAC) is an autonomous organisation


established in 1988 under the administrative control of Dept. of Planning, Govt. of Maharashtra. It primarily
caters to the need of the State of Maharashtra by using their expertise of Remote Sensing and Geographic
Information System in implementation and planning of various schemes being developed by Maharashtra
Government departments.

1.5 Usage of Remote Sensing and GIS by MRSAC

The Remote Sensing data is collected and used in the GIS for providing effective and innovative solution
and achieving twin objectives of meeting the demands of the increasing population and maintaining
ecosystem balance by way of creating data warehouse of resource maps and dissemination of info on various
themes through maps and serving the data on the web.

Mangrove mapping The temporal changes in coverage of Mangrove due to industrial blockages in
Mumbai and Sub-urban
Mapping of Jurisdiction of all Water resources department, mapping of offices till division, dam and
canal network mapping, land and asset mapping of the Dept.

Project proposal for study of Land use change in urban ebnvironment of Nagpur city using RS&GIS

District Mining Plan for temporal mining Leases of Minor Minerals(Stone, Clay,Murrum)

Land Use / land cover mapping of Maharashtra state mapping using three season satelite data and noting
the changes from 2005-2006.

Digitization and Geo-referencing of Village (Cadastral) Maps for effective utilization of natural
resources and socio-economic database for planning, implementation and monitoring / impact
assessment of various development activities.

GIS based mapping for Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) using high resolution satellite data

Remote Sensing and GIS based Mapping for Water Supply and Sanitation (WSS) using high resolution
satellite data
Personal Learnings

It was a rare opportunity for us to get to know the working of a Govt. institute from such close
quarters and have interaction with scientists, administrators and staff running an organisation which is one of
its kind in the whole Maharashtra state. There were many personal learnings during immersion period like

(i) how a Not for profit technology organisation can setup its administrative and technical departments so
that its objectives are fulfilled,

(ii) secondly we got to see how remote sensing & GIS is helping govt. to implement e-governance and also
in improving the reach and monitoring of schemes like NREGA in far flung areas.

(iii) The Organisation is helping young people to learn GIS & RS by giving jobs as consultants on contract,
and provides opportunity to get a hands on experience so that they are able to find jobs outside afterwards,
this has also helped MRSAC in meeting their objective of spreading science and they are able to increase or
decrease their workforce as per requirement so that no unnecessary people are recruited.

(iv) The centre has been made a nodal agency for RS & GIS application in Maharashtra therefore govt.
departments have to contact MRSAC first for any remote sensing and GIS project this saves Govt. cost and
helps optimum utilisation of in-house setup

(v) We also learnt how Not for profit organisation accounts keeping is different from profit based
organisations.

(vi) The electricity setup is critical part of the MRSAC as it works on computers and they have servers that
are being accessed throughout the state 24*7, hence they keep UPS ready in case of power failure, also solar
cells have been installed to meet 25% of the demand and plan to increase it further.

(vii) The centre has taken various data security measures, installed surveillance cameras as they contain
sensitive government data in servers. MRSAC has proper backup of these resources and past project data
sharing with another third party is not done without user consent.

(viii) MRSAC develops a pilot before any project proposal this increases quality and scientists also engage
in Proof of concept for new ideas to suggest govt. departments how they can use RS&GIS thus helping in
technology promotion and development.

(ix) The centre has opened 2 more branches as workload is going to increase because they are solo
organisation for such a huge state of Maharashtra, another reason is the distance between Nagpur and
Mumbai, the place where most of its user departments are located.
SWOT Analysis of MRSAC

Strength

1. Made the Nodal agency by Maharashtra Govt. for RS & GIS application planning so for any remote
sensing application project govt. departments have to first necessarily consult MRSAC.

2. Institute has access to National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) and Regional Remote Sensing
Centre (RRSC) expertise at low cost because all of them are government organisations and
transaction is easier.

3. RS & GIS technology is able to provide information about places that are very difficult to reach so
they can quickly obtain data and respond to any event at that place. The technology can also provides
real time monitoring which with the traditional images provide data for temporal analysis.

4. It is a pioneer in field of remote sensing & GIS and through its years of operation has gathered a
huge amount of past maps and knowledge which MRSAC uses in its present projects and services.

5. MRSAC gets good resources and personnel as it provides better learning opportunity due to its past
exposures and rich history, another reason for talent pool attraction is the good benefits that MRSAC
provides for its staff and scientists.

6. The main objective of the organisation is not profit but science and technology advancement and
promotion, therefore scientists are working for innovative and effective solution and they can strive
freely to publish books and research papers in RS & GIS application domain.

7. MRSAC has very low strength in terms of total number of staff and there is no strict hierarchy so the
access to Director is good also idea sharing is very good and implementation and monitoring of
projects becomes easier.

8. The Governing body has many eminent and experienced state officials and national level subject
matter experts are also there so the decision making for long term goal setting and guidance is good.

Weaknesses

1. There is no proper benchmark to test the success of the organisation as it has a kind of monopoly in
getting projects of the state of Maharashtra and thus has no real competitors.

2. The numbers of employees being fewer scientists have to share a burden of doing non technical work
at times decreasing their availability for research and innovation.

3. The customers are less technology savvy and sometimes reluctant to do field work for the project so
the development and understanding of MRSAC remote sensing & GIS application takes persuasion
and time.

4. There is no proper method or channel provided by MRSAC for scientists to get to know the
advancements that are being introduced in their domain and hence their growth professionally is
limited to the work they do currently and their own sources.
Opportunity

1. There is opportunity to build a knowledge management platform for sharing of learning between
scientists of different domains and providing forum where employees can find interesting solutions
to general RS & GIS problems. MRSAC can thus remain competitive if their knowledge keeps
getting better with experience.

2. There can be a move to build a production team separate from the scientific team which can look into
the existing delivered projects; this will free scientists from solving random and trivial queries
arising due to customer ignorance.

3. The centre can start up some educational programme like its Karnataka counterpart which is
providing M.Tech in the field of RS & GIS. This will help in spreading the RS & GIS knowledge
more effectively and promote research and development.

4. MRSAC has opportunity in so many emerging fields like LiDAR, hyper spectral sensors and usage
of RS & GIS in urban ecosystem as the resolution of remote sensed images is increasing. There is
opportunity in 3D imaging and analysis as technology is improving day by day. This can open new
market segment for MRSAC. Defence surveillance techniques can be one such area which is
particularly important in Indian context.

5. With increase in population and pressure on the ecosystem, scarcity of resources and concerns of
global warming centres like MRSAC have to be on the fore front of developing warning systems that
are futuristic and are able to provide signals before time so as preparedness for disasters improve.

Threat

1. One of the biggest threats is being dependent on Government grants and projects of the Government
departments. MRSAC has to develop long term plan to really function autonomously and be able to
get at least its operating cost.

2. If the opportunities and demand for scientists for RS & GIS grows then MRSAC should be able to
keep its talent intact as right now this industry is in its infancy and they might face this challenge in
future.

3. Being dependent on costly foreign software is another threat that can be countered by giving proper
push for development of indigenous open source platforms that are open for all and not owned by
any MNC or is patented.

4. Data is the constant input in the RS & GIS industry.The inability to get high resolution images from
Indian satellite can be detrimental if the foreign players increase the cost for high resolution images.
So long term contract with image procurers and helping in improving image capturing techniques for
ISRO satellites is needed to counter this threat.

References
*http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/remotesensing.html
* http://nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/geographic-information-system-gis/
http://www.karnataka.gov.in/ksrsac/mtech-course.html
http://eijournal.com/print/articles/swot-analy-sis-strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-and-
threats

http://www.mrsac.gov.in/en/facilities-strength

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