Achievements of ISRO

The satellites of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) have contributed in improving the facilities of telecommunication, distance education, tele-medicine, etc. in rural and far-flung areas of the country.             The extent to which the improvements have been achieved Include.            I.         Television:  Direct To Home (DTH) Satellite Television coverage of 100% area of Indian mainland including rural and far flung areas.         II.         Telecommunication: About 1.75 Lakh satellite communication terminals are supporting various applications like village telephony, data connectivity, broadband connectivity, Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) of banks, etc., covering the rural and far flung areas of the country.        III.         Tele-Education: 56,000 classrooms connected through satellite networking, of which 51,000 are Receive Only Terminals (ROTs) and around 5000 are Satellite Interactive Terminals (SITs) catering to all the sectors of education from primary to higher and professional education.      IV.         Telemedicine: The Telemedicine network connects the patients at a remote hospital to a speciality hospital for tele-consultation. 60 specialty hospitals connected to 308 remote and rural hospitals and 16 Mobile Vans. The Utility study has been conducted by the Government in this regard.                                  The studies have been conducted by Developmental Education and Communication Unit (DECU) of ISRO on the utility of tele-education and tele-medicine networks over the years. The findings of the study indicate the following. (i)                                             Tele-education networks are very effective to reach out remote and rural areas of the country and also to enhance the understanding level of the students. The target audience for tele-education include students from school, technical education, higher education, teachers training including physically challenged students. On an average 2-3 hours of programmes are transmitted for 4-5 days in a week.                 (ii)   Tele-medicine networks are very useful in treating the patients located in remote and rural areas. Through tele-medicine patients get the best doctors for consultation. Tele-medicine provides the advantage of saving time and money to the patients and also provides relief to family members from the hassles of accompanying the patient to speciality hospitals in the urban areas. Mobile tele-medicine vans are found to be ideal to cover larger geographical area with treatment in the fields of Ophthalmology, Diabetic screening, Cancer, General Medicine and hearing impairments in the infants.