According to a proposal unveiled on Thursday at a ministry event meant to brainstorm creative ideas for tribal development, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs plans to work with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to deploy V-SAT stations on a pilot basis for about 80 tribal villages in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Maharashtra to bring Internet services there.
Chief Information Scientist S. Somnath of ISRO reaffirmed that the organisation will work with the Ministry on this project and that a Memorandum of Understanding will be soon signed by the two organisations to provide pilot connectivity (services like Internet, medical, and educational connectivity) to these communities dominated by tribes.
At the discussion on creative ideas for empowering tribal communities on Thursday, which was presided over by Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda, this proposal was one of several that were put out. Proposals for initiatives with other esteemed institutions such as AIIMS Delhi, IIT Delhi, IIM Calcutta, and IISc Bengaluru were deliberated upon, in addition to the cooperation with ISRO.
In this collaboration with ISRO, the government will establish V-SAT (very small aperture terminal) stations for the eighty isolated and rugged communities that have long been disconnected due to their challenging terrain.
The objective of this pilot project, according to Ministry officials, is to assist with e-governance in these remote places and it will be monitored in order to be expanded to other comparable tribal settlements in other States.
They continued by saying that the project’s logistics would soon be finalised and that the Ministry is currently working to select these 80 communities among these four States.
In addition, the Tribal Affairs Ministry is collaborating with AIIMS Delhi to provide training programmes for medical professionals and paramedics who operate in tribal communities, as well as to carry out cutting edge research on health concerns pertaining to tribal people, with a focus on sickle cell anaemia. Additionally, plans are underway to establish the Bhagwan Birsa Munda Chair of Tribal Health and Haematology at the Capital’s AIIMS.
Furthermore, an idea to establish a such specialised department for Appropriate Technology and Entrepreneurship in association with IIT Delhi and the IIM in Kolkata has been put forth. Another proposal was made to work with the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru to establish a training centre where tribal students may take semi-conductor courses.
