Following the successful demonstration flights of Bhaskara 1 and Bhaskara 2 launched in 1979 and 1981, respectively, India
began development of an indigenous IRS (Indian Remote Sensing Satellite) program to support the national economy in the
areas of "agriculture water resources, forestry and ecology, geology, water sheds, marine fisheries and coastal management".
The Indian Remote Sensing satellites are the main-stay of National Natural Resources Management system (NNRMS), for
which Department of Space (DOS) is the nodal agency, providing operational remote sensing data services. Data from the IRS
satellites is received and disseminated by several countries all over the world. With the advent of high resolution satellites new
applications in the areas of urban sprawl, infrastructure planning and other large scale applications for mapping have been
initiated.

Remote sensing applications in the country, under the umbrella of NNRMS, now cover diverse fields such as crop acreage and
yield estimation, drought warning and assessment, flood control and damage assessment, land use/land cover information,
agro-climatic planning, wasteland management, water resources management, under-ground water exploration, prediction of
snow-melt run-off, management of water- sheds and command areas, fisheries development, under development, mineral
prospecting forest resources survey, Active involvement of the user ministries/ departments has ensured in an effective
harnessing of the potential of space-based remote sensing. An important application of IRS data is in the Integrated Mission for
Sustainable Development (IMSD) initiated in 1992. IMSD, under which 174 districts have been identified, aims at generating
locale-specific action plans for sustainable development.