Accelerate Vigyan Scheme

"Accelerate Vigyan" (AV) strives to provide a big push to high-end scientific research and prepare scientific manpower which can venture into research careers and knowledge-based economy. The aim of AV is to expand the research base in the country, with three broad goals - consolidation / aggregation of all scientific training programs, initiating High end Orientation Workshops and creating opportunities for Training and Skill Internship. ‘ABHYAAS’, a program of AV scheme, is an attempt to boost Research & Development in the country by enabling and grooming potential PG / PhD level students by developing dedicated research skills in selected areas / disciplines / fields through its two components- High-End Workshops (“KAARYASHALA”) and Training and Skill Internship (“VRITIKA”). This is especially important for those researchers who have limited opportunities to access such learning capacities / facilities / infrastructure. The list of dedicated themes (but not, necessarily restricted to the list per-se) for high-end workshop can be found at AV web portal, whereas there are no specific target themes for “VRITIKA”.

Program Theme

Geographical Information System (GIS) is considered as framework for gathering, storing, retrieving, managing and analyzing geographic data. GIS integrated spatial data with its attributes and revel data characteristics, its pattern, relationships and situations which help the user to take objective decisions for their applications. WebGIS is the modern form of GIS applications. It presents data from personal desktop to global community using network. This widens the possibilities of accessibility and affordability to authoritative GIS data to common person. It is considered as a new paradigm in modern GIS. WebGIS enables us to show and work on the real time data than the static data in desktop GIS. However, there is a lack of information and knowledge in this particular development in Geospatial Science with special references to natural resource management. The knowledge gap widens among us in much greater dimension with the capital intensive developments in GIS fields. Fortunately, there is a movement for Free and Open Source Software for GIS (FOSS4G) and it has gained momentum across the globe. Therefore, this proposed 7-days Kaaryashala on “WebGIS Technology and Applications in Resource Management using FOSS4G” has been proposed for wide range of teachers and students for improving the quality of teaching and researches.

About the Department and The University of Burdwan

The University of Burdwan is a NAAC accredited “A” category university and was established on 15^th June 1960. It is situated on the lusty green campus of Golapbag. The Department of Geography was established in 1969. The Department has achieved the prestigious SAP-DRS Programme of the University Grants Commission and FIST Programme of the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India. The Department offers M. A. /M. Sc., M. Phil and Ph. D. programs. The major thrust areas of the Department are - Geomorphology (Theoretical & Applied), Soil and Land Use, Environmental and Urban Issues, Regional Development, Geography of Water Resources, Remote Sensing & GIS, etc. Presently the Department has a faculty strength of 12 (6 Professors, 5 Assistant Professors (1 post is lying vacant) and 1 Scientific Officer.

The Department welcomes the renowned Resource Persons and Participants of different branches of Geospatial Sciences to this SERB, DST Govt. of India sponsored 7-Day ‘Kaaryashala’. For an updated knowledge and effective research in modern applied Geospatial Science field, the teachers and research scholars should have a strong awareness and application mindsets on WebGIS. We strongly believe in that this Seven Days ‘Karyashala’ will improve a lot on knowledgebase of the participants and shall bring applications to natural resources’ management. This shall also make them aware that there is alternative FOSS4G available for teaching and research to the high value software and data. This ‘Kaaryashala’ will be a valuable feather to the academic contribution of the Department of Geography, The University of Burdwan, Burdwan to the larger academic world.