The Fisheries department has gathered the details of around 3,000 fishermen as part of its ongoing survey in the district to update “Sagara”, an exclusive Android application developed by the National Informatics Centre under the Digital Kerala Initiative for the dissemination of timely alerts on weather changes and other emergency communications by various government agencies.
The six-member survey team appointed by the Fisheries department on contract for the survey has also gathered the registration details of 1,000 boats, including the mechanised and non-mechanised ones, which will be shortly uploaded onto the special purpose mobile application.
Project coordinators say the target is to gather the complete details of 20,000-odd fishermen after visiting all the major harbours in Kozhikode district within three months and make it available on the application for their proper technological linkage. It also aims at recording the details of no fewer than any 5,300 fishing boats in the district, they say.
Now, data collection is going on in six centres, mainly covering the harbours and fish landing centres. The team entrusted with the task is primarily recording the fishermen’s name, language, phone numbers, age, nature of their job and the details about their vessel. At first, it will be fed into a special software named ‘Realcraft’ and later it will be accessed by a State-level technical wing to update the Android application. A centralised communication system for supporting emergency rescue operations too is on the anvil.
“The fishers’ cooperation is very vital to complete the survey work on time as most of them are very much busy with their work. We have asked the survey team to first collect the details of all the fishing boats and then focus on the fishermen,” says P.K. Ranjini, Deputy Director of Fisheries (in-charge). She also points out that the data collection drive will be a flop if the survey team fails to get the details of all the active fishers in the district.
With the launch of the latest version of the application with features to support multiple languages, fishing boat owners in Kerala will be able to get real-time alert about the status of their vessels and crew on the job. For the Fisheries department authorities, the updated application will bring all their target groups under a common roof for quick information sharing during emergency situations. At present, the basic version of the application is available in the Google Playstore for free download and can be logged in using the registered mobile number.
Officials say the linkage of all the existing satellite-based technologies that guide fishers when and where to fish for the best results too will be possible in the advanced stage of developing the app. Integration of the existing services from the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services and India Meteorological Department too are possible in consultation with the Indian Space Research Organisation.
