New Delhi, August 8 (newsin.asia): Late last month, India inaugurated a coastal early warning system christened “Sagar Vani”.

In order to effectively disseminate advisories directly from the lab to the end user, an Integrated Information Dissemination System (IDS) named as “Sagar Vani”  has been developed by ESSO-INCOIS through the Industry M/s. Gaian Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

The ‘Sagar Vani’ is a software platform where various dissemination modes will be integrated on a single central server. The ‘Sagar Vani’ includes Multi Lingual SMS, Voice Call / Audio Advisory, Mobile Apps (User / Admin modules), Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), Email, GTS, Fax, Digital Display Boards, Radio / Television broadcast units, IVRS, Cloud Channels, etc. The system also has facility to provide access to various stakeholders (NGOs, State Fishery Departments, Disaster Management Authorities, etc.) so that they too will be able to further disseminate these ocean information and alerts to the user community.

This ‘Sagar Vani’ system compares with the most advanced countries’ services in terms of speed of delivery, omni-channel capabilities and diverseness of services. With this system, the services will be disseminated in local languages using advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.

For the first time in India, television and cable network media are used in the dissemination

ESSO-INCOIS has adopted state-of-the-art technologies and tools available in the country for the timely dissemination of Ocean Information and Advisory Services that includes Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) advisories, Ocean State Forecast (OSF), High Wave Alerts and Tsunami early warnings.

There are 3288 marine fishing villages and 1511 marine fish landing centers with a  marine fisher folk population of 3,999,214. About 37.8% (1,511,703) of marine fisher folk are engaged in active fishing.

ESSO-INCOIS is serving about 3.17 lakh users directly through in-house efforts as well as through partnering organizations including NGOs. But there is a lot of ground to be covered. It is necessary to reach information to the 9.27 lakh fisherfolk  involved in actual fishing either full or part time.

(The featured image at the top shows the devastation brought about by the Asian Tsunami of December 2004. Photo. Live Mint)