The government launched a new geospatial planning portal ‘Yuktdhara’, under ISRO’s geo-portal Bhuvan. It was launched by Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Giriraj Singh.

Highlights of Yuktdhara portal

• This platform will serve as a repository of assets (geotags) created under various national rural development programmes — MGNREGA, Integrated Watershed Management Programme, Per Drop More Crop programme and Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana — along with field photographs.

• The portal integrates a wide variety of spatial information contents to enable a holistic approach towards Gram Panchayat planning using open-source Geographical Information System (GIS) tools.

• This portal will help ministries and departments to see the geographical location of planned assets on a map in the web-based system. It will further help in integrated planning for works, optimised convergence plans and facilitate effective monitoring of the works and creation of assets. 

• It integrates a wide variety of thematic layers, multi-temporal high resolution earth observation data with analysis tools. 

• It will help in facilitating new MGNREGA assets using remote sensing and geographic information system-based data.

• Planners will analyse previous assets under various schemes and facilitate identification of new works using online tools.  

• Yuktdhara-based plans will be prepared by grassroot functionaries and verified by appropriate authorities for relevance and resource allocation. 

Bhuvan platform

• Bhuvan, ISRO’s geo-portal, is providing visualisation services and Earth observation data to users in the public domain. 

• Besides, the portal also services several users for their remote sensing application needs. 

• Bhuvan made a modest beginning in 2009 with simple display of satellite data and basic GIS functionality with many thematic maps on display functionality with many thematic maps on display functions. 

• It has grown horizontally in diverse areas of applications and vertically in terms of number of image and map services including high-resolution satellite data. Presently, more than 6,000 map services offered by Bhuvan are being used under various applications.

• Bhuvan platform supports many applications that address governance and other geospatial applications that are being used by central and state governments and departments.

Manorama Yearbook app is now available on Google Play Store and iOS App Store