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Information kiosks for fishermen soon

M. Somasekhar

HYDERABAD, Sept. 17

INFORMATION `kiosks', the one stop place to access a variety of data are all set to get into a specialised mould.

A couple of `kiosks' that will exclusively provide information on potential fishing zones in the coastal areas are to be set up by the Department of Ocean Development (DoD).

These kiosks will be launched in October in the coastal areas in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala to begin with, according to Dr K.R. Radhakrishnan, Director of the Hyderabad-based, Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS).

The location of the kiosk would either be in the campus of a Central Government research institute or a non-governmental organisation (NGO). The fishermen in the neighbourhood areas would be provided data in local languages also, Dr Radhakrishnan told Bu siness Line.

The Department of Space (DoS), using remote sensing satellites has prepared extensive maps of potential fishing zones (PFZ) along the coastal states an islands. The work co-ordinated by the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), has recently been transfe rred to INCOIS, an autonomous department under DoD.

The data culled out from the satellite imagery in the form of maps and text showing the `potential spots' where fishes could converge is being transmitted to the fishermen community through fax, telephones, telegrams etc.

About 110 fish landing centres in the 9 coastal States are on the list of data receivers of the PFZ twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. There are a total of 300 such centres in these locations.

The PFZ information has been found to be useful for fishermen to reduce the search time and increase the catch per unit effort. Scientists use the sea surface temperature data gathered by the NOAA satellite and the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS-P4 ), to prepare these maps, according to DoD.