(a) whether satellite data should be made available on free of charge to
countries prone to natural disasters in the Asia-Pacific region ;
(b) if so, whether the participants declared the same;
(c) the other decisions arrived at in the conference; and
(d) to what extent India will be provided with such data?
MINISTER OF STATE FOR PLANNING, STATISTICS & PROGRAMME
IMPLEMENTATION AND ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS & PUBLIC
GRIEVANCES (SHRI ARUN SHOURIE):
(a)&(b) There have been proposals in several international fora that satellite
data should be made available free of charge by satellite operators to
countries subjected to disasters. However, no consensus has yet been
reached at the international level, including at the Second United
Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
(UN ESCAP) Ministerial Conference on Space Applications for
sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific, held at New Delhi in
November 1999.
(c) The above Conference made the Delhi Declaration launching the
second phase of the Regional Space Applications Programme of
ESCAP for action oriented, result driven programme for
optimising human and financial resources in the region through
cooperation in the areas of environmental and natural resource
management, food-security, capacity building, human resource
development and education, poverty alleviation, weather forecasting,
natural disaster management, health care and hygiene and sustainable
development towards improving the quality of life.
(d) India receives weather related data from the Indian INSAT satellites
and remote sensing data from the Indian IRS satellites. India also
receives data from the NOAA satellites of USA, ERS and
METEOSAT of Europe and Radarsat of Canada. If required, data can
be requested from other operators also.