ITANAGAR, 21 Jan: Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein on Thursday emphasized the need for establishing a state-of-the-art centre of excellence for science and technology, where people from different disciplines may come together and share facilities/resources.
He said this while chairing a meeting on the establishment of a centre of excellence for science and technology in Itanagar.
“If established, the centre of excellence for science and technology will facilitate the government departments, community, academicians and students to share knowledge and skill through education, outreach programmes and training,” he said.
Also present at the meeting was Science & Technology Minister Honchun Ngandam, who, while seeking fund from the state government, said, “There is application of science and technology in all the government departments, and if established, it would cater to the needs of all the government departments.”
He further informed that a plot of land allotted to the science & technology department is lying vacant in the capital city, and stated that, if not utilized, it could be encroached on in the future.
Science & Technology Director CD Mungyak while presenting the proposal through a PowerPoint presentation informed that the centre of excellence for science and technology “will have the facilities to integrate state-of-the-art remote sensing geographic information system and global positioning technology with on-the-ground knowledge of ecosystems and natural resource management to address relevant issues.”
“It would facilitate to provide core geospatial dataset (administrative boundaries, road, railway, major settlement, etc) to all the departments in the state. It would also help in generating geospatial datasets and create user-friendly applications (through web-enabled distribution tools) for government departments to serve as an effective tool for decision-making, planning, implementation and monitoring purposes,” he added.
Among others, Science & Technology Chairman Bamang Mangha, Principal Finance Secretary AC Verma, Planning & Investment Commissioner Prashant Lokhande, Finance Secretary YW Ringu, Planning Director Pallab Dey and HUDCO Itanagar Development Officer D Sonowal attended the meeting. (DCM’s PR Cell)
