IIT Ropar to set up hub for Agriculture and Water Technologies
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in/ Ropar
In a first of its kind, IIT Ropar is setting up Sectoral Application Hub to bring the solutions for stubble management, water quality improvement, mapping of hazardous substances in water/soil and their treatment, deployment of IoT based Cyber-Physical System (CPS) technologies in farming fields.
Being in the agrarian state, a major mandate of IIT Ropar has been to take up research aimed at addressing Water-Agriculture related issues and to support this vision. The hub is aimed to carry out translational research and work with Line Departments to develop prototypes, products, and implementations. The hub will create a platform for technologies and applications in Agriculture & Water.
“In a world increasingly propelled by technology, Cyber Physical System is an integrated system involving Sensors, Communication, Actuators, Control, interconnected computing networks and data analytics, which will help in developing solutions and technical support for scientific breakthroughs and Innovations related to issues of Agriculture and Water in the country. This novel mission by Government of India will help the Water-Agriculture sector by exposing it to cutting edge research”, said, Prof. Sarit K Das, Director IIT Ropar.
The hub core team comprises of Dr. Prabir Sarkar (Stubble Management and Environment), Dr. Neeraj Goel (AI in Agriculture),Dr. Neelkanth Nirmalkar (Water Quality Management), Dr. Suman Kumar (IoTs and IoEs in Agriculture), Dr. L.Vijay Anand (Water and Soil Quality Management), Dr. Pushpendra P. Singh (Water/Soil Mapping-Hazardous substances) and Dr. Mukesh Kumar (AI based farm Surveillance). When asked about the motivation behind the Agriculture & Water Hub initiative, Dr. Pushpendra P. Singh who is coordinating the hub activities at IIT Ropar reminded of what Dr. M. S. Swaminathan, the Father of Green Revolution in India, said, “If agriculture goes wrong, nothing else will have a chance to go right in the country.”
IIT Ropar is already developing a computer model of groundwater system of Sutlej – Beas Doab. An ambitious soil-water-plant lab spread over an area of 2.5 acres, equipped with an Automatic Weather Station, an indigenously developed ultra-modern Agricultural Lysimeter (invoking the spirit of “Make in India”), experimental agricultural farms, Vermi-composting facility etc.
Recently, a Bathymetry facility has been set up at IIT Ropar which comprises a remotely operated boat with ecosounder. This facility permits field measurement of sedimentation in reservoirs created upstream of dams. IIT Ropar has been looking at the regional groundwater contamination issues viz. Uranium contamination of groundwater in Malwa region.
March,11,2020
