In India’s recent journey of sustainable economic growth, the geospatial information has emerged asan effective enabler to support good governance, sustainable development goals and empowerment of its citizens. In India’s evolving geospatial ecosystem, the current focus is on improving the publicness in the provision of geospatial data and information through institutional strengthening for enhancing the performance of organizations. In this context, developing technical capacity at the individual level, remains the key factor for the success of this change process. Capacity refers to the ability of individuals and organizations to make and implement decisions and perform functions in an effective, efficient and sustainable manner. Capacity building is an ongoing process and involves changing attitudes, imparting technical knowledge and developing skills while maximizing the benefits of participation, knowledge exchange and ownership. Recognizing the above needs, the National Geospatial Program (erstwhile NRDMS) of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India is conducting summer/winter schools over last a decade to develop national capacity for geospatial science and technology development through diverse programs in collaboration with various partner organizations across the country. So far total over 5000 participants have been trained all over the country at various levels of geospatial science and technology through 166 summer/winter schools in geospatial science and technology. From this year two new initiatives viz. ‘Geo-innovation Challenge’ for harnessing new ideas in Geospatial Science, Technology and entrepreneurship and a special call for SC/ ST category under 21 Day summer/winter schools in geospatial science and technology (Level-1).have been launched.

In order to develop the course /training module on capacity building in Geospatial Technologies, DST has supported an R&D project to Institute of Environment Education and Research, Bharati Vidyapeeth University, Pune. In this regard, a national portal on Geospatial Technology was also developed by them. A large bank of tutorials based on GIS, Remote Sensing, Spatial Analysis WebGIS sectors have been uploaded to the portal. It consists of data base of resource persons as well as the outline of three week training programme. The portal is being used regularly and accessed by almost 8000 people per month. This may be viewed through the website : www.dst-iget.in. I hope the efforts made by this group would be of immense help to the new trainees for upscaling their knowledge in Geospatial Technologies.

This portal an initiative of the National Geospatial Program (erstwhile NRDMS), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India under its capacity building initiative to develop capacity and enhance training in geospatial science and technologies in India. The report of the Task Force of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India (2014) on geospatial education in the country has recommended that the nation must enable itself in this technology area and create a knowledge base that will give it an edge in the international arena but also bring benefits to its own national development efforts In this regard, a national portal for Capacity Building for Geospatial Science and Technology has been developed by the Bharati Vidyapeeth University, Institute of Environment Education and Research, Pune support by the DST, Government of India. The portal contains a large bank of tutorials with data based on geographical information systems, remote sensing, spatial analysis, WebGIS, and other topics. These include theme specific tutorials on geospatial technologies for marine sciences, disaster management, watershed management, etc. developed by the Principal Investigators from organisations who have been part of conducting the summer/winter schools in geospatial science and technology. The bank of tutorials are continuously being updated. The portal also consists of a data base of resource persons as well as the outline of three week training programme. The portal is being used regularly and accessed by almost 8000 people per month. This may be viewed through the website: http://dst-iget.in. We hope these efforts would be of immense help to the new trainees for upscaling their knowledge in geospatial science and technologies.

In order to develop the course /training module on capacity building in Geospatial Technologies, DST has supported an R&D project to Institute of Environment Education and Research, Bharati Vidyapeeth University, Pune. In this regard, a national portal on Geospatial Technology was also developed by them. A large bank of tutorials based on GIS, Remote Sensing, Spatial Analysis WebGIS sectors have been uploaded to the portal. It consists of data base of resource persons as well as the outline of three week training programme. The portal is being used regularly and accessed by almost 8000 people per month. This may be viewed through the website : www.dst-iget.in. I hope the efforts made by this group would be of immense help to the new trainees for upscaling their knowledge in Geospatial Technologies.