Union Minister for Science & Technology Harsh Vardhan will inaugurate the newly constructed ITCOocean Complex in the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) at 11.30 a.m. on December 22 and dedicate it to the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The Minister will also name the academic building as ‘Atal Bhavan’ and the guest house as ‘Atal Atithi Griha’. The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) had established an International Training Centre for Operational Oceanography (ITCOocean) to provide training to scientists/ researchers/ government officers/ disaster managers/ decision makers and has been conducting short-term training programmes for the last few years.
The Centre’s mission is to assist member States of IOC/UNESCO in developing oceanographic scientific base, related technology and information systems and to create a pool of trained ocean scientists, technologists and managers to cater to the growing demands of operational oceanographic services and better management of oceans.
INCOIS is already playing its part as a leading operational oceanography institute in the region with tsunami early warnings delivered to 25 countries on the Indian Ocean Rim on real-time basis, since IOC/UNESCO designated the Centre as Regional Tsunami Service Provider (RTSP), a press release said.
