Mr. Mohamed Kasim Khan will present his APS as per the detail below:
Date: Feb 28, 2023
Time: 0830 – 0930 hrs.
Venue: CTARA Conference Room No.2
Title: The Indian Rural Observatory: Developing a Structured Framework for Systematic Collection and Assimilation of Data for Solving Problems specific to Rural Development in India
Guide: Prof. Pennan Chinnasamy
RPC Members: Prof. Chaaruchandra Korde & Prof. Kumar Appaiah
Abstract:
India is predominantly a rural nation with around two third of its population and 70% workforce residing in rural areas. Rural development is understood as the unfolding of socio-economic equality, inclusiveness and sustainability of the ecosystem in rural areas by means of collaborative and participatory efforts of the local panchayats, and state and central governments. In the current day scenario, where technology plays a vital role, the development of villages has started to happen at a pace nearly equal to that of cities. The digital divide between the resourceful cities and the remotest corners of villages is being bridged with the advent of smart data-driven technology and interventions which assist the system in precisely pinpointing the requirement on time. In India, there are many agencies that aim to aid sustainable development. Most of these agencies are central or state government-owned and are operated individually or under a specific ministry. Each agency, in order to formulate policies and rules, collect data and manages it. For example, a water resources department collects data on reservoir water levels, water demand and water supply for sustainably managing water supply schemes. Therefore, agencies are divided into themes/focus areas or departments and data is housed in each of these units individually. This bifurcation of agencies has resulted in limited inter-department collaborations, thereby reducing holistic research views. A holistic plan will need diverse data from various sources, which may not be housed in a single agency. For -example, a holistic view of groundwater depletion involves data and understanding from the irrigation department, power department, agriculture department and surface water departments, etc, as water changes its course between compartments. Data centre and Data lab concepts are common for IT fields and also for Urban development, however, such infrastructure is not available for rural regions, mostly due to the paucity in data and lack of capacity. On that note, there is a need for a centre that can collect, store and analyse data from different agencies for rural development. A typical data centre consists of networked computers, power distribution, computer accessories and storage that can procure, organize, process and store data from which new information is produced. As such, some data centres are not a single entity, but consist of many elements and collaborations, while some data centres exist as a consolidated unit. In this report, a specific data centre for rural development is proposed wherein the key objective is to develop a structured framework for the systematic collection and assimilation of data for problems specific to rural development in the Indian context. A case study with an ongoing rural issue would be studied using the developed rural observatory.
In this APS, I will be demonstrating the web-based system that has been developed for visualizing scenarios based on rural-specific data which has been built using on the proposed framework.