Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh says, civil servants’ capacity building to involve latest Geospatial technology

National (16/02/2023): Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today announced that in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s penchant for technology driven governance, the Civil Servants’ capacity building will involve the latest GeoSpatial technology which is one of the most recent technologies available to us as well as the world over.

Dr Jitendra Singh said, he has always been speaking about wider integration in working and whole of Govt concept, and added that today he feels gratified to witness integration between two of the important Ministries associated with him, namely the Personnel/ DoPT and Science & Technology/ DST.

The Union Minister said that the NIGST (National Institute of Geo-Informatics Science & Technology) has the potential and expertise in Geospatial technologies to play a pivotal role in building the civil service. He said, as per National Geospatial Policy (NGP) 2022, online courses in geospatial science & technology areas are to be made available through iGoT Karmayogi platform.

The Minister visited the facilities of the Institute in Hyderabad and interacted with the faculty and trainees there. A detailed presentation was also made before the Union Minister about NIGST and its various facilities, courses conducted etc.

During his interaction at NIGST, Dr. Singh said that NIGST can augment the civil service training eco-system with competencies & role based education in the areas of Basic GIS, Drone Survey & Mapping, GIS Analysis, Land Surveying, Cadastral Mapping, GNSS Surveying, Digital Mapping, LIDAR Mapping, Utility Mapping, 3D-City Mapping, Geoid Modeling, CORS Network etc.

Dr. Jitendra Singh noted that, under Prime Minister Modi’s leadership, the National Geospatial Policy (NGP), 2022 has laid down the overarching framework for holistic development of the Geospatial ecosystem to support the national development and economic prosperity. He said that it has laid emphasis on developing the Geospatial skill and knowledge standards across the country because need for Geospatial professionals, their training & development in diverse area of geospatial & allied technology has been spelt out in the policy. He also said that the NGP categorically talks about developing NIGST into a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for providing training in specialized courses in the domain of geospatial science & technology.

The Union Minister said that the restructuring process of the NIGST is underway to achieve the objectives outlined by the government and actions have been initiated for capacity expansion and improvement in the training quality with modernization of facilities including Digital Classrooms, Labs, Field instruments, Practical Field surveying exercises, Hostel facilities etc. He stated that the Department of Science & Technology (DST) has approved & implemented the new Institutional governance system with Board of Governors, Board of Evaluation and Board of Studies. These boards comprise leading experts, Eminent Subject matter experts from premier institutes, Industry experts and senior officers from SoI. Dr. Singh said that the Board of studies has revised the syllabus and course modules in line with present day technology and functional requirements of the users. Similarly, Board of Evaluation has revised the evaluation and assessment processes for all trainings, introduced the faculty development programmes, mentorship, use of technology solutions etc.

NIGST (earlier known as Indian institute of Surveying & Mapping or IISM) is a Surveying & Mapping training institute under Survey of India known for short term and long term training & capacity building over past over 50 years to various countries (like Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Oman etc.), Centre and state ministries/agencies, Security agencies, private industry etc.