ISRO to supply 500 sets of navigational equipment for trial run from Jan

Deep sea fishing vessels putting out to sea from the Kerala coast will be equipped with satellite-based navigational equipment from January.

The government is planning to promote large-scale manufacture of satellite navigational equipment to be supplied to fishermen as part of a project to ensure their safety in sea.

The collaborative project with ISRO involves the use of NAVIC, India’s own regional satellite navigation system, to warn fishermen about weather events.

ISRO has agreed to supply 500 NAVIC positioning- cum- communication sets to be fitted on fishing boats for the trial run.

By February

While 250 boats will be equipped with the sets in January, the rest of the equipment will be provided by February.

The State will procure another 1,000 sets and transfer the technology to public sector enterprises for large-scale manufacture.

A master control room to be established in Thiruvananthapuram will be at the heart of the early warning system.

The facility would be equipped to gather information from orbiting satellites of ISRO as well as data generated by INCOIS and the IMD.

Data link

A data network will link the master control room with six regional control rooms located in the coastal areas that would disseminate information to fishermen in Malayalam through the NAVIC sets upto a distance of 1,500 km from the coast.

Fishing zone

It will also incorporate a potential fishing zone advisory to help fishermen locate shoals and provide advance market information.

Based on ISRO’s constellation of seven IRNSS satellites, NAVIC is India’s own version of the GPS navigation system that became operational last year.