Shri Ratan P. Watal, Principal Adviser, NITI Aayog inaugurated the first GIAN course on Sustainable Urban planning using remote sensing and GIS at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur’s outreach centre at Noida on 15th January 2018. Shri Shiv Das Meena, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs was the Guest of Honour.

This course is being conducted under the Global Initiative on Academic Network (GIAN) Program of the Ministry of Human Resource Development and actively supported by NITI Aayog and Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

This course aims to give participants state-of-the-art remote sensing and GIS skills which will allow them to rise to the challenge of managing the rapidly changing urban environment of Indian cities. Furthermore, the course will pay particular attention to issues of water resource management, water pollution and strategic emplacements for water treatment facilities.

The course is being coordinated by Ptofessor Rajiv Sinha of Department of Earth Sciences at IIT Kanpur and Dr. Patrice Carbonneau, Department of Geography, University of Durham, UK.

This course will contribute significantly to build trained manpower for the Smart Cities Mission launched by the Government of India on 25 June 2015 with an objective to promote sustainable and inclusive cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of ‘Smart’ Solutions.

This course is being attended by participants from several Government departments such as ISRO, AP Remote Sensing Application Centre, National Mission on Clean Ganga and students from different engineering colleges and universities across the country.

Shri Watal in his inaugural address stressed the need for GIS and Remote Sensing technology in addressing the challenge of urbanization and exhorted the participants to come forward with smart solutions for smart cities.

Smart Cities Mission training in remote sensing and GIS to build technical capacity for urban water management and planning. NITI Aayog and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs supported a GIAN course on Remote Sensing and GIS for Sustainable Urban Planning at IIT Kanpur's outreach centre to develop technical skills for urban management-with emphasis on water resource management, pollution control and siting of water treatment facilities-and to build trained manpower in support of the Smart Cities Mission through interagency and academic participation.