The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, today launched the Village Resource Centre (VRC) through video link from New Delhi today. Set up jointly by ISRO and Dr. M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, VRC provides through a single window a number of facilities of particular relevance to the development and well-being of the rural population. Speaking on the occasion, the Prime Minister said, "Unless we take the benefits of modern science and technology to our villages, we cannot get rid of mass poverty which has afflicted millions and millions of our people". He described the mission as yet another saga of adventure and enterprise to bring the benefit of modern technology for the development of India's villages.

VRC, conceptualised as community resource, aims to deliver space enabled, IT-based and e-governance related services in the backward region where terrestrial infrastructure is not economical. Primary issues related to eradication of illiteracy, better health care, training on better jobs, enhancing agriculture productivity and ensuring proper drinking water management etc. would be facilitated by digital connectivity and remote sensing. Tele-education would enable non-formal education, strengthen supplementary teaching mechanisms, and facilitate interactive training and skill development processes to the rural community. Similarly, tele-medicine would facilitate specialist doctor-to-doctor consultations; doctor to patient consultations, besides strengthening medical extension and health care related training in the rural areas. Disaster management support, community based vulnerability and risk related information, early warning and extreme weather information dissemination mechanisms would provide reliable disaster management support at the village level.

The Indian Space Research Organisation/DoS has plans to set up VRCs in selected locations in the backward regions such as islands, mountainous terrains, tribal dominated areas, etc. To start with, VRCs are being set up in Andaman & Nicobar Islands; Wayanad and Palakkad (backward and tribal belt) of Kerala; and parts of North East.