Fishermen to get weather information in Kannada

Bangalore-based company develops software and hardware

Feather forecast for fishermen is available in Kannada also from the Ocean Information system installed at Deputy Director, Department of Fisheries office at Fishing harbour in Bunder in Mangalore on Sunday 29th January 2012. Photo: R.Eswarraj

The electronic display board installed at the Fisheries Department in Mangalore's Bunder area will soon display information on weather conditions in Kannada.

Muralidhar, Project Engineer, Webstar Software Private Limited, the Bangalore-based company, which has developed software and hardware for the electronic display board, said that the company was making the regional language the default language on all the installed display boards, including in other States, based on feedback from users.

He was speaking to The Hindu at an exhibition held as part of a meeting on “Science and Technology: New Opportunities and Challenges” organised by the Karnataka Science and Technology Academy, and the Science and Technology Department, Government of Karnataka, in Mangalore University on Sunday.

Servicing

The company would service the display boards that had been installed, beginning with those close to the Bangalore-based company, he said. The system would be updated initially in Karnataka, Kerala, Goa and Andhra Pradesh. The work of updating the systems with the regional language software would be done within three months, he said. The existing software would have to be updated. The operating system was Microsoft and the application built upon that was by the company, he said.

Information

The display board shows information sent from the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad.

Nagaraj Kumar, scientist in-charge, Potential Fishing Zone Mission, INCOIS, said that fishermen and NGOs in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh had stated that getting information in local language was time-consuming as it followed English and Hindi on the display board. So it was decided to retain information in the local language to enable users to get information quickly. Information in English and Hindi would be provided if users asked for it, he said. There were more than 100 such systems installed in coastal areas of various States. In Karnataka, such a system had been installed in Karwar, Honnavar, Bhatkal, Tadadi and Mangalore, Mr. Muralidhar said.