PATNA, Jan. 15 -- Chief secretary Pratyaya Amrit has directed all departments to ensure systematic and comprehensive utilization of BIRSAC's geo-spatial services. Under the State's BIRSAC Geo-Spatial Service Usage Policy, geo-spatial analytics will now be a mandatory component in the DPRs of infrastructure projects costing Rs.50 crore or more. Departments availing these services will pay only 0.25% of the total project cost, ensuring institutional sustainability without imposing additional financial burden on the State. The CS was chairing a review meeting of the Bihar Remote Sensing Application Centre (BIRSAC) on Wednesday. The meeting was attended by Development Commissioner Mihir Kumar Singh, Secretary of the Department of Science, Technology & Technical Education Pratima, and senior officials including Additional Chief Secretaries, Principal Secretaries, and Secretaries of various departments. During the meeting, the departmental Secretary presented BIRSAC's ongoing activities, highlighting the BIRSAC's role in creating geo-spatial inventories of natural resources and departmental assets, providing spatial data for state-level planning and development, supporting disaster monitoring and management, and building village-level geo-spatial databases. The chief secretary emphasized that integration of BIRSAC's geo-spatial capabilities into infrastructure planning is essential to make development projects scientific, data-driven, and future-ready. Departments were instructed to incorporate geo-spatial inputs at the planning stage itself to avoid technical, administrative, and land-related obstacles at later stages. It was also clarified that technical approval from BIRSAC will now be mandatory before granting financial sanction to DPRs of projects exceeding Rs.50 crore. All departments were directed to strictly comply with this provision. The Chief Secretary directed departments to provide regular updates on project progress through the portal and strengthen inter-departmental coordination. He appreciated BIRSAC's work and urged further enhancement of the Centre's technical and human resource capacities....