Stesalit Systems Ltd supplies GPS PDA to Odisha Forestry Department

KOLKATA, August 18, 2016 - Sxtreo T51 is the first GAGAN-enabled GPS PDA on Open Source mobile platform, made in India by Stesalit Systems Ltd, made to receive Indian satellite signals from ISRO for improved position accuracy.

The Sxtreo T51 PDA was officially unveiled by Forest Minister of Odisha, Bikram Arukh. He said the initiative will go a long way in effective management of forests. Secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra, PCCF SS Srivastava and PCCF, Wildlife Sidhanta Das were present on the occasion.

With this implementation, GNSS personal digital assistants (PDAs) will help the Forest Department of the state to improve monitoring of forest and wildlife resources management, apart from keeping a tab on the financial accounting.

The device, designed for the harsh forest environs, will be used for geospatial validation of forestry accounts and incident reporting with features of foot patrolling, monitoring of poaching and tree-felling, survey and demarcation of forest land. The devices will geotag locations of the carriers and also automatically upload images with financial details of schemes and programmes which are being implemented.

Sxtreo T51 is designed specifically to be used in forests, with a rugged IP 65 rated design to withstand the harsh forest environment, and can operate seamlessly for long durations as it comes with 8000 mAh rechargeable battery and a large five inch screen for easy data acquisition.

The data of Indian forests are sensitive, so the design has incorporated bullet-proof data security and integrity systems, which cannot be tampered either physically or with an external software application. Fully on Open Source technologies and integrated with ISRO's Bhuvan, Sxtreo T51 does not incur any proprietary licensing software costs, thus reducing the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) as mandated by the Government of India's Policy Directive on Adoption of Open Source Software. All the data and apps reside in the data center servers managed and owned by the Odisha Forest Department ensuring complete data security.

The forestry-specific applications have built-in web GIS functionalities based on the most advanced Open Source GIS server databases in an Enterprise Linux environment.

The GNSS handheld Sxtreo T51 works seamlessly with the wide area differential positioning system - GAGAN created by ISRO. This typically ensures a standalone accuracy of 2-4 meters, which has been tested and certified by technical Institutions of national importance like IIT, IIIT and NIT. This is the first indigenous technology developed for such precise positioning at the R&D center of Stesalit.

Sxtreo T51 from Stesalit integrates an intuitive fusion of camera and compass to generate user-specific geotagged images showing camera direction along with geographic locations and satellite time-stamps that is the backbone for the geospatial validation for monitoring of public expenditure leading to high level of transparency. This is one of the biggest integration of cross platform technologies by integrating financial and accounting data with geospatial validation to improve accountability and transparency.

"Since the device will handle sensitive geospatial data, the design has incorporated bullet-proof data security and integrity systems, which cannot be tampered either physically or with an external software application," said Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF) (IT and GPS) PK Mallick.

Mr Hemant Khemka, MD of Stesalit Systems Ltd said that Stesalit plans to launch similar solutions for other industry verticals with integrated handheld devices for similar re-engineering of accounting, monitoring and review processes of the work the Government and its arms do on a daily basis like MGNREGA and other projects. This technology once implemented improves the accountability, transparency, and effectiveness through field validation.

The Odisha Forestry Department has targeted to deliver 600 PDAs to 50 forest divisions by September 10. It is looking at arming 3,000 forest guards with PDAs so that DFOs, headquarters and even public can keep a tab on the programmes.