The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) here has developed a database of all fish landing centres along the Indian coast describing their location, types of fishing activity, seasonality, and extend of fishing operations, which will help enhance fishermen’s safety as well as the security of the country.
The database, which was handed over to the Navy, would also help monitor intrusions into Indian waters from neighbouring countries, said a press release from the CMFRI here.
A. P. Dineshbabu, principal scientist at the Mangalore Research Centre of the CMFRI, led a research team of 22 scientists and 85 other members. He said information about the landing centres and operational areas of fishing would be useful in identifying the regions where fishing activities were taking place and also in protecting the lives of fishermen.
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The team collected information on 1,278 landing centres spanning all maritime States — Gujarat 129; Maharashtra 149; Goa 34; Karnataka 93; Kerala 201; Tamil Nadu 359; Andhra Pradesh 204; Orissa 54; and West Bengal 55.
Nature and areas of fishing activities may vary from one region to the other. Fishing is purely seasonal in some locations and all these changes and accurate data have been included in the GIS document.
The route taken by fishermen and the extend of fishing along the Indian coast could easily be identified with the help of the data and this will help the Navy and other security agencies to pass on communications about the presence of fishermen to navigators.
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A. Gopalakrishnan, director of the CMFRI, handed over the document to Vice Admiral A.R. Karve , Flag officer Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Naval Command.