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COPUOS/T.551 

Page 14 

 

 

 

Mr. Chairman, let me briefly present to this 

Committee the significant achievements made by India 

in the space field since the last session in June 2005. 

 

 

An important milestone during the year has 

been the launch of India’s most advanced 

communication satellite, INSAT-4A, intended mainly 

for meeting the demand for Direct-to-Home television 

broadcasting requirements.  This satellite was launched 

by the European Ariane-5 launch vehicle from Kourou, 

French Guyana during 21 December 2005.  It carried 

12 high-power Ku-Band and 12 C-Band transponders.  

The satellite has been commissioned and has been put 

into regular service. 

 

 

In addition to this, the space application 

programmes have continued to make forays with the 

advent of several newer initiatives.  Over the year, a 

number of tele-education, tele-medicine and Village 

Resource Centre networks got commissioned and has 

provided for better outreach.  In the area of the tele-

education project, today more than 3,500 EDUSAT 

classrooms have been created in the country.  Through 

the use of the tele-education network, more than 

200,000 students got benefited which includes students 

from schools, colleges, professional and training 

institutes.  The system has been used for imparting 

teachers and nurses training as well.  Similarly, in the 

areas of the tele-medicine projects, we have 

successfully expanded the network in the last one year.  

Presently, ISRO’s tele-medicine network consists of 

160 hospitals, of which 133 hospitals in the remote, 

rural and district levels have been connected to 27 

Super Speciality Hospitals located in the major cities. 

 

 

India attaches high importance to the use of 

space-based systems for water and forest resources 

managements.  Presently, remote sensing data has been 

effectively put to use for a number of water-based 

applications, which includes, among others, irrigation 

water management, snow and glacier studies, surface 

water bodies mapping/monitoring, ground water 

prospecting and recharging.  Similarly, in the area of 

forestry, remote sensing data is being used extensively 

to generate forest cover maps for monitoring the forest 

cover changes and planning conservation measures.  

Forest cover maps are being generated in the 1:50,000 

scale. 

 

 

Mr. Chairman, during this session, the Indian 

delegation will make three separate presentations under 

the agenda items on space and education, space and 

water, and space and forestry. 

 

 

Adding another dimension to the effective use 

of space-enabled services for societal benefit has been 

the initiative of ISRO in creating the Village Resource 

Centres, VRCs.  Village Resource Centres are 

envisaged as a single window delivery mechanism for 

a variety of space-based products and services, such as 

tele-education, tele-medicine, information on natural 

resources for planning and development at local level, 

interactive advisories on agriculture, fisheries, land and 

water resources management, livestock management, 

and so on and so forth.  A number of clusters of 

Village Resource Centres has been established across 

the country providing valuable inputs to the local 

community and helping them in addressing a variety of 

social aspects.  It is planned to set up at least 100 

VRCs across the country by the year end. 

 

 

In addition to this, some of the other major 

space application programmes were continued.  They 

are crop acreage and production estimated, forecasting 

of potential fisher zones, and creating national 

inventory on wastelands. 

 

 

Mr. Chairman, international cooperation has 

always been an integral part of the Indian space 

programme.  Over the years, ISRO has established 

bilateral and multilateral agreements with a number of 

space and other related agencies.  ISRO takes special 

interest in providing the expertise and services for 

helping the developing countries in the application of 

space technology.  The Centre for Space Science and 

Technology Education for the Asia and Pacific Region, 

affiliated to the United Nations and operating from 

India, is an initiative in this direction.  The Centre has 

continued to make good progress and has carried out 

22 post-graduate programmes with a duration of nine 

months and two are currently ongoing.  In addition, it 

organized a number of short-term courses/workshops.  

So far, 643 scholars from 46 countries, including the 

Asia-Pacific region and outside the region, were 

benefited from the educational activities of the Centre.  

We are happy to inform the Committee that during 

November last year, the Centre has successfully 

completed 10 years of its service. 

 

 

Mr. Chairman, during the year 2005-2006, 

there have been some significant agreements that were 

signed between ISRO and other international agencies 

in the space technology front. 

 

 

ISRO and NASA of the United States of 

America signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 9 

May 2006 for inclusion of two United States scientific 

instruments onboard India’s first mission to the Moon, 

Chandrayaan-1. 

 

 

ISRO signed an Agreement with the European 

Space Agency, ESA, in June 2005, which will provide 

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