The government launched a new geospatial planning portal called ‘Yuktdhara’ under Bhuvan. It was launched by Giriraj Singh, Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj.

• This new portal will help in facilitating new MGNREGA assets with the help of remote sensing as well as geographic information system-based data.
• Portal will also serve as a repository of geotags that have been created under several national rural development programmes such as MGNREGA, Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, Integrated Watershed Management Programme, Per Drop More Crop etc along with field photographs.
• It integrates several thematic layers and multi-temporal high resolution earth observation data with the analysis tools. Using these tools, planners will be able to analyse previous assets under schemes and would facilitate in identifying new works using online tools.
• Yuktdhara-based plans would be prepared by grassroot functionaries. Plans would later be verified by appropriate authorities for the purpose of relevance and resource allocation.

The name Yuktdhara is very apt. Word ‘Yukt’ has been derived from Yojanam, the planning while ‘Dhara’ indicates the flow.

Launch of the portal is culmination of joint efforts of ISRO and Ministry of Rural development towards realising the requirement of G2G service for rural planning in order to support the decentralized decision making.

Geoportal Bhuvan is a rich information base of ISRO. It provides satellite images and analytical capabilities. It has thus become a de-facto geospatial platform for several developmental planning activities across India.