Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati signs pact to train ASSTC staff

GUWAHATI: Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati is going to collaborate with the Assam Survey and Settlement Training Centre (ASSTC) to promote the training of ASSTC officers. An MoU was signed in this regard on Wednesday between the two institutions in the presence of Jogen Mohan, State Minister of Revenue and Disaster Management, Shantanu Gotmare, Director of Land Records and Surveys, Prof TG Sitharam, Director of IIT Guwahati, Pankaj Chakravarti, Principal of ASSTC and other officials from ASSTC and faculty from IIT Guwahati.

According to a press release, IIT Guwahati will conduct courses related to drone operation, training, maintenance, data collection, application in various sectors, theory classes on modern land management, and research and projects by leveraging their respective expertise in this area.

It is the first instance across the country where training on drone technology will be imparted to all levels of officers and it is a unique step to integrate knowledge-based technological advancement as part of the training curriculum for State officials.

In his address, Assam's Minister of Revenue and Disaster Management said, "In this new era of technology and education, this MoU is a great step towards helping the region. I thank IIT Guwahati for this collaboration. This will help the region and encourage people to work for the development of the region."

Within the framework of this MoU with ASSTC, IIT Guwahati will impart training to the Government administrative and technical staff in Survey and Settlement as well as to private candidates. Both ASSTC and IIT Guwahati will work closely to collaborate and co-operate with each other to support the needs of ASSTC and select manpower as mentors, trainees, and skill development and upskilling.

Speaking on the significance of the collaboration, Prof TG Sitharam said, "We are delighted to be able to extend our services to the region through this heritage organization ASSTC and be associated with its activities. IIT Guwahati specifically recognizes this futuristic step and we look forward to technology-based networking, and academic training programs both on campus as well as on-site and support other technology-based initiatives for the socio-economic benefit of the state and the region. I am very glad that today we will be able to initiate the academic courses related to this drone technology to ASSTC and in the near future we hope to make a more positive contribution to the state and extend this technology to various other sectors."

The duration of course work (both practical and theory) will be of one week for Recorder's Certificate Class Course (RCCC) students and 4 days for officer's class including one examination/submission of project report/presentation at the end of the session conducted by IIT Guwahati.

Elaborating further, Prof Parameswar K Iyer, Dean of Public Relations and Branding IIT, Guwahati, said, "It is indeed a historic step to integrate knowledge-based technological advancement as part of the training curriculum for State officials which I am sure will improve the overall data collection and processing of land records and other areas."

Assam and the North-East being vulnerable to various natural calamities such as floods, landslides, land erosion by rivers as well as huge fires, the drone-based technologies can be extremely useful for land survey, river mapping, forest cover, agriculture sector, highway/traffic monitoring, border surveillance, etc., by providing real-time information and data at a time scale not possible manually or by other means.

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