Maharashtra Remote Sensing Applications Centre (MRSAC), Nagpur with the unending and consistent support of Government of Maharashtra and the Governing Body of MRSAC, completed eventful journey of 24 years and the next year centre would be in a Silver Jubilee year. During its glorious journey MRSAC touched several milestones—from establishing a small and limited-facility visual interpretation laboratory in September 1988, through setting up and building infrastructure, to enhancing and enriching the advanced facilities for catering to the ever growing needs of Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) in the state.

In its tireless journey, the center has all the time tried to help preservation and conservation of our depleting natural resources by offering innovative, effective and optimal solutions by blending RS and GIS technologies with the know-how already available with the state.

Today, MRSAC has surpassed the stage of mere database generation by accomplishing the massive task of geo-referencing of 44,000 villages and city survey maps of all councils and corporations in the state and creating a voluminous database of natural resources on different scales for diverse user communities, focusing on the rural user-group.

I humbly put on record that the Maharashtra would be the first state and MRSAC the only Center in the country to complete such a colossal task and offer seamless database for both rural and urban users. MRSAC is grateful to unending and consistent support of Government of Maharashtra and the Governing Body of MRSAC for this unique achievement.

National level priorities and growing concerns have also been regarded, addressed and taken up successfully by MRSAC by participating in projects like Land use/land cover mapping, National wetland inventory assessment, Land degradation mapping, Wasteland monitoring, which are operational under the broader umbrella of Natural Resources Census, formulated and funded by ISRO. Other pioneering and information-intensive projects like Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission and environmentally sensitive coastal zone mapping projects have been completed. Prudently, MRSAC is planning to address natural resources concerns with the help of the information generated through these centrally sponsored projects. We have begun attempts to culminate these national information bases, into locally acceptable, technologically achievable and administratively feasible user-friendly information products through web-based integrated Information System/Geo-portal being rolled out in phased manner.

Advances in IT, RS and GIS have driven MRSAC towards planning; initiating and offering Web-GIS based solutions on intranet for resource management, disaster mitigation and developmental activities through well devised and interactive information systems. With increasing awareness and gradual adaptation of newer technologies, MRSAC envisages a vision towards penetrating RS, GIS and other space-enabled technologies to the ultimate user at the grassroots level, and also to make him accountable by making him the integral part of the state's development and prosperity and thus taking a step towards information society.

The Web based geo-portal will ensure dissemination of variety of databases to the users in the state government departments. MRSAC will initiate capacity building activities to promote the use of geo-portal by various departments. In general, number of officials of different statures is trained by MRSAC, who are rendering support and services to their respective departments in utilization of the rich database for smooth functioning of their day to day activities.

As an organization, MRSAC in its journey of commitment towards technology and its affluent Maharashtra State, has carved a niche for itself, not only within its technological circle and counterparts but with its culturally rich people.

The dutiful, hardworking and highly-skilled staff of MRSAC has always been the key to this Center's success year after year and its excellent performance not only in the applications of RS and GIS but also in demonstrating and convincing the judicious applicability of the technologies and utility to the policy makers in achieving handy and timely solutions for various line departments.