ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN GEOMATICS EDUCATION IN HARYANA STATE, INDIA

In Haryana, the beginning of Geomatics may be traced back to the establishment of Haryana State Remote Sensing Application Centre (HARSAC) now renamed as Haryana Space Application Centre at Hisar under the aegis of Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of Haryana with the active support from Department of Space, Govt. of India in 1986. Though, Gurgaon has developed as Geomatics hub housing many national and international collaborators but mostly involved in RS&GIS applications and rarely as a training centre. Looking to the needs of the trained manpower in Geomatics, PG diploma course in remote sensing and GIS was started by MDU, Rohtak in 2005 followed by CRM, Jat College Hisar in 2007. GJU, Hisar came up with M. Tech. degree in Geoinformatics in collaboration with HARSAC, Hisar two years before i.e. in 2009. MDU, Rohtak has also come up the M. Tech. programme in Geoinformatics this year. The Geo-sciences disciplines including the department of Geophysics, Geology, Geography and Environmental Sciences in different universities in Haryana are also having a compulsory paper on RS, GIS and GPS emphasizing more on the fundamentals and applications specifically in their specific domains. The Department of Geophysics, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra has also established Geoinformatics lab with funding from UGC to cater the training needs in this sector. The present paper discusses critical issues related to the present status, grey areas and future scenario of Geomatics education in Haryana.