3 Day 41st INCA International Conference commences at PU

Chandigarh, October 27, 2021: 3 Day International Conference by Indian National Cartographic Association (INCA) commences today on the theme Cartography for Self Relient India which is being hosted by Department of Geography, Panjab University, Chandigarh.
            The Chief Guest, Governor of Haryana, Shri Bandaru Dattatraya in his address said that the geo-spatial field has tremendous potential for generating employment in the country. He also mentioned that in the management of COVID-19 pandemic crisis, COVID maps proved beneficial. He further added that application of Geographic Information Sciences(GIS) has become a crucial part of how NASA gets to know the feature of other worlds, develops broader understanding of Geophysics and gathers valuable information about our own planet. He added that India will have a coherent national location data framework by 2030 which will assist the country to move towards E-Economics, E-Service and E-Commerce and will help improve services to the citizens. He highlighted the SVAMITVA , flagship scheme of Centre is reformative step towards establishing clear ownership of property in rural inhabited areas by mapping of land parcels using drone technology.
            Prof. Raj Kumar, Vice Chancellor, PU, while referring the conference to be prestigious platform, emphasised on the need to come up with an action plan to make cartography multi-disciplinary so that its knowledge can be shared with other domains.
            The Surveyor General of India, Mr. Naveen Tomar, in his keynote address,  focussed on the requirement of data collection on a large scale to make India a self-reliant nation. Also, he stressed upon the need of fresh blood to be injected into the system and also talked about public-private partnership in this regard.
            The Guest of Honour, Vice Admiral Adhir Arora, Chief Hydrographer, Govt. of India stressed on the sphere of marine cartography and spoke on the complexities of ocean mapping particularly in terms of huge funding and man power being needed for this task.
            Prof. Krishna Mohan, President of INCA, introduced the theme of the Conference, which he said aligned with the vison of The Government of India of “Reform, Perform and Transform”. It was followed by an inaugural address by Director of National Institute of Advanced Study, Bengaluru and Former Secretary, MoES, India, Dr. Shailesh Nayak. He emphasised on Maps to be a mainstay in the transformation of process of India under the vision of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat.
            The felicitations of the dignitaries along with the winners were performed apart from release of books and maps. Prof. Gaurav Kalotra, Chairperson Department of Geography proposed vote of thanks.