Kolkata: One lakh marine fishing vessels across the country will soon be fitted with transponders under the Vessel Communication and Support System (VCSS), officials said.
The Union Department of Fisheries on Thursday approved the national roll-out plan for VCSS under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) at a total cost of Rs 364 crore.
Apart from installation of transponders on the fishing vessels, the project involves the establishment of the required earth station and associated communication infrastructure and development of the ‘Nabhmitra’ application in regional languages.
Under the project, the transponders are provided free of cost to eligible fishermen. It is to be implemented on a 60:40 cost-sharing basis between the Centre and the states.
Union Territories will be provided 100 per cent central assistance.
VCSS has been indigenously developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to enable monitoring, control and surveillance of marine fishing vessels.
ISRO has developed the ‘Nabhmitra’ application to support the marine fishing community.
The key features and capabilities of the application include periodic position reporting, two-way messaging, emergency/SOS messaging, automatic boundary crossing alerts (based on geo-fencing), weather and cyclone warnings, emergency weather alerts, Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) advisories, navigational assistance and an e-Token/Trip Declaration system.
This system will be extremely beneficial to fishermen during extreme weather conditions, allowing rescuers to locate their vessels faster.
It will also provide alerts to prevent Indian fishing boats from crossing into the territorial waters of neighbouring countries inadvertently.
The infrastructure at 423 Fish Landing Centres (FLCs), out of the total 1,547 notified ones across the country, has been planned.
The FLCs are considered for infrastructure development based on the priorities of the respective states/UTs with factors such as the number of fishing vessels operating, the number of fishers dependent on the centre, the volume of fish landings, proximity to fish markets and processing centres, and other local requirements, including techno-financial viability and availability of financial resources along with compliance of statutory provisions.
The largest number of FLCs (350) is in Andhra Pradesh, followed by 301 in Tamil Nadu and 204 in Kerala, as per government records.
–IANS
