Article Posted on : - Jan 06, 2009

NE-SAC, located at Shillong, is a joint initiative of DOS and North Eastern Council to provide developmental support to the North Eastern region using space science and technology

SHILLONG (PTI): Farmers of India’s Northeast can now interact with top scientists of the country and seek solutions to their problems related to farming, market, health and weather dynamics from their nearest Village Resource Centres (VRC).

Shillong-based North Eastern Space Application Centre (NESAC) in association with Bangalore-based Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has set up 34 VRCs across the Northeastern region and proposes to set up around 50 more to bring farmers closer to experts who can guide them in various fields.

Farmers across 10 VRCs of Assam interacted with agricultural experts who were stationed at NESAC during the 'Farmers Virtual Congress' as part of the 96th Indian Science Congress here on Monday.

NESAC director PP Nageswara Rao said the VRC would serve as single window access to information for farmers across the region with respect to various problems faced by them during cultivation, marketing, health and weather dynamics.

Once the system comes up, the farmers would sit with a interpreter in front of a computer set in the VRC and would seek advise from the experts sited at the base in any part of the country.

NESAC has collaborated with many institutes including Assam Agricultural University, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Gauhati Medical College and other institutes to fructify the advisory system.

ISRO has funded the entire hardware, transponder time and bandwidth in the VRCs, while local collaborators in each state would bear other costs like sponsoring a local coordinator.

Of the 34 VRC set up so far, 16 are in Sikkim, eight in Nagaland and 10 in Assam. The VRC are likely to be functional by June next year.