New Delhi: Ministry of Railways and PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for setting up of ‘Kalpana Chawla Chair’ on Geospatial Technology for Indian Railways at PEC University of Technology on Monday (30 May 2016). On this occasion, Minister of State for Railways Mr Manoj Sinha, Chairman Railway Board Mr A. K. Mital, Member Engineering Mr V. K. Gupta, and other Board Members and Senior Officials were present. Mr V.K. Gupta, Member Engineering from Railway Ministry and Mr Som Mittal, Chairman, Board of Governance, PEC University of Technology signed the MoU.
This academic chair is being instituted in fond memory of Late Kalpana Chawla , an Indo – American Astronaut and Alumnus of PEC during the year 1978-82. The primary aim of this chair is to promote research activities in Geo-spatial Technology and to strengthen Indian Railways especially Railway projects where use of remote sensing data , global positioning system (GPS) and Geographical information System (GIS) is predominant. This will immensely help Indian Railways to solve problems indigenously, which are often outsourced to western countries.
The MoU was signed in line with Railway Minister’s Budget announcement. Indian Railways would provide a corpus of Rs 10 Crore to PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh towards setting up and to meet the running expenses of this chair.
