NIT Rourkela Partners with NRSC-ISRO and Tea Board India on CHAYANKAN AI Tea Plantation Project

Key facts

• National Institute of Technology Rourkela (NIT Rourkela) signed a tripartite MoU with the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and Tea Board India for the project 'CHAYANKAN'—Comprehensive AI-based Geospatial Data Analytics for Tea Plantation Monitoring.
• The MoU was signed on August 27 at RRSC-East, NRSC, Kolkata.
• The three-year project commenced in April 2026 and aims to develop geospatial and AI-based solutions for tea plantation mapping, yield estimation, and pest and disease forecasting.
• The project will integrate multi-source remote sensing data from satellites and UAV platforms with ground-based observations, using machine learning techniques for data-driven governance.
• The MoU was signed by Dr Sushil Kumar Srivastav (NRSC), Dr Amrita Chakraborty (Tea Board India), and Prof Saurav Chatterjee, Dean (SRICCE), NIT Rourkela, who signed virtually.
• Dr Arati Paul of RRSC-East, NRSC, is the Principal Investigator, with Co-PIs Dr Anima Biswal and J. Nalini of NRSC and Dr Anup Nandy of NIT Rourkela.