Last updated: February 15th, 2020 1:05 PM

Sericulture Information Linkage Knowledge System (SILKS)

The diversified climatic conditions in India supports the larger production of the silk across the nation. Thus, the Sericulture Sector plays a very significant role in the rural development of India. Ever since the Central Silk Board (CSB) was launched in 1948, the board has been making efforts to improve the productivity and quality of the silk production in India. Sericulture Information Linkage Knowledge System (SILKS) is a system introduced by the board to discover more potential areas for sericulture, assist farmers with advanced scientific information such as silkworm productions, rearing techniques, disease management, cocoon handling and improve the quality and production of Silk in the country.

Definition of the System

Sericulture Information Linkages and Knowledge System is single-window information, communication and advisory services system for the planners, administrators and farmers with sericulture habitant.

Objective of the System

The SILKS was launched with the following objectives:

• Provide a larger space for storing the information.
• Support the sericulture by providing added value data
• Educating farmers with advanced sericulture techniques
• Provide templated planning and advisory services.
• Provide all the information and data in the language that are easily accessed by the local sericulturists.
• Carrying out all the communication, information and advisory services through internet and satellite

Framework of the System

• An effective database management system is prepared for the management of all the geospatial data and other data of SILKS.
• A state-of-art hardware architectures are implemented for presenting this application for their archival, storage and querying.
• Databases are updated with integration of recent data feedbacks received from the SILKS has been developed for each district, bringing all villages under the radar.
• There are 17 major non-three-dimensional (Spatial) modules and spatial (Three-dimensional) modules which are being grouped into three categories, namely:

I. Planning Services This module deals with greater insights on the

• Silkworm Food Plants Production Technologies
• Techniques of Rearing Silkworm
• Diseases and Pest Management of Silkworm Food Plants
• Improved Varieties of Silkworm Food Plants
• Species of Silkworm
• Processing of Cocoons
• Infrastructure and Equipment and Allied Sectors and occupations

II. Other Services This module provides information on the particulars that are much suitable for developing the sericulture habitant in terms of,

• Providing Seri Marketing,
• Establishing Seed Distribution Centres,
• Setting up of Weaving Reeling Centres and
• Schemes & Grants for Farmers.

III. Natural Resources Management This module is integrated with the variable natural resources and its conditional aspects like:

• The climate and the land condition as the Soil, Slope, etc.,
• Administrative Boundaries to embrace proper sericulture aspects,
• Roads and village locations have also been integrated into the module.

 Features of the System

SILKS is a crucial factor under Applications of Remote Sensing and GIS in Sericulture Development.

• SILKS is the National Project coordinated by North Eastern Space Applications Centre and funded by Central Silk Board.
• SILKS has been developed using Open source GIS to provide three-dimensional (Spatial) and non-spatial information for selected districts in the country.
• The SILKS portal is currently hosted in the public access with the data services for more than 1000 sets of spatial layers.
• These data have the areas of a potential expansion of sericulture development in a single window access system.
• SILKS is supported by few non-spatial modules on sericulture planning, farmers advisory and other services specific to the district.
• The information system can be easily accessed by the users through a single-window interactive web application with accessibility for the entire nation covering 12 major languages.

How to Use the System

Farmers with the sericulture habitant can make use of the system by carrying out the following procedure.

1. Log in to the SILK portal clicking on the domain http://silks.csb.gov.in/.

SILKS-Login Page 2. Choose the respective state and district from the drop-down list and choose the click here button. SILKS-Choosing the District 3. The information and the sitemap of the chosen region will be displayed as in the image below. SILKS-SiteMap The user can easily navigate through the sitemap with the GIS tools and acquire the available necessary data. The site can be steered clearly by using the following GIS tools,

• Use the zoom-in icon to minimise the screen size to get an aerial view of the website.
• zoom-out -- Region-specific zoom is made possible using the QuickZoom tool. This icon enlarges to the screen size to a certain extent
• The icon zoom-to-full-extent enlarges the screen to get a full view of the text content
• The icon selective-Zoom is used to zoom or enlarge a specifically selected portion
• Re-centre tool is similar to reset mechanism. It brings back the original size of the screen page.
• Pan tool is used to move and search across the page
• Distance measurement is a part of a three-dimensional module, and this tool is used to know the latitudinal and longitudinal variations of the sitemap
• Print maps tool is used to select the font and its size and customise the map output that is produced in the file format such as PNG, JPEG, GIF or PDF.