Other States - Puducherry

Weather buoy replaced

— Photo: Special Arrangement

A second buoy all set to be deployed two km away from Gandhi Statue near the beach in Puducherry.

PUDUCHERRY: A weather buoy, which was deployed two km away from the Puducherry coast in May 2007, was replaced by an advanced buoy on Sunday.

Apart from measuring height, period and direction of waves, the buoy has special features such as satellite transmitter and passing data onto the Internet.

A scientist from the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, had deployed the new buoy two km away from Gandhi Statue at the beach, after the battery of the first one ran out of charge two weeks ago.

The buoy had been designed by the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, sources said. Watch-keeping would be carried out by local fishermen and the Pondicherry Multipurpose Social Service Society (PMSSS).

“ There are two antennas on the buoy and data will be recorded every second. We download the information and send it to the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad, and the National Institute of Oceanography. They model the data and send it back to us. We translate it into Tamil and send it to the Village Information Centres (VIC),” A. Stephen Raj, Information Communication Technology - Program Manager, PMSSS, said.

There were 10 VICs in Puducherry including at Kangachettikulam, Periakalapet, Chinnakalapet, Solainagar (North), Solainagar (South), Vaithikuppam, Kurusukuppam, Vambakeerapalayam and Chinnaveerampattinam, 11 at Cuddalore and three at Karaikal.

Ashok Kumar, a scientist at National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, said, “The data will come on the Internet and can be accessed from anywhere in the world. In addition to this, it has an Iridium satellite transmitter, which helps to locate the position of the buoy in case it drifts from its original place.”

Technical officer Jai Singh was present.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu