Hi-tech gaze: A forest in Munger. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Patna, July 26: The state environment and forests department would use satellite images from this financial year to keep tabs on the plantation drives carried out on 6,437sqkm earmarked as forest area in Bihar.

“The use of technology would start right from the planning stage and the field officials responsible for the plantation work would have to provide co-ordinates of the area in which the plantation work would be done,” deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who holds the charge of the environment and forests department, told The Telegraph.

Modi said the co-ordinates of the area would be based on the data generated by the instruments that use global positioning system to ascertain the exact longitude and latitude of a given place. The deputy chief minister said after the completion of plantation work, the satellite images of the blocks where the plantation would be done, would be taken. The same block would be photographed using the satellite imagery technique after a certain interval to find out if the plants had survived and what addition had been done to the green cover of the area.

Principal chief conservator of forests Bashir Ahmed Khan said: “The availability of satellite images would help the department bosses to have a first-hand information about the outcome of the plantation drives. They would be better placed in comparing the information with the reports submitted by the field officials.”

In case the plantation conducted in a particular area fails to yield the desired results, the new system would allow the department bosses to find out the reasons behind it. If there is no substantial addition to the green cover despite carrying out the plantation work, they would be able to seek explanations from the field officials.

Earlier, the state headquarters used to have information like the plot numbers and the names of the blocks in which the plantation drives were carried out. The headquarters either had to depend on the field reports or its officers had to physically verify the things for getting the first-hand report about the status of the plantation works as well as their impact.

Khan said a proposal was also under consideration to set up a laboratory in the state capital for processing the satellite images so that the state could generate the required report itself. But the department would not wait for the completion of the laboratory work to start the new system. Initially, the work of preparing the digital maps of forest areas would be outsourced to an agency. It would be asked to give coordinates, based on information gathered using GPS devises, of the blocks of lands on which plantation works would be carried out.

The department would take services of Forest Survey of India, Dehradun, for processing the satellite images are concerned.