Hyderabad, Mar 20 : The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) in Hyderabad has developed a special system to provide information to the fishermen about fishing zones.

The scientists of INCOIS are providing the information through various mediums, which the fishermen can avail it easily.

"We communicate this information through SMS, newspapers and recently we presented it through electronic display board wherein user can see in their harbor and day to day information. we update from our INCOIS everyday. So before going to the sea, fishermen can look at the board and can go to the harbor," said M. Ravichandran, Head, Modeling and Ocean observation Group, INCOIS.

"Basically we started with giving information about potential fishing zone advisories. That means if a fisherman wants to go in a sea and he wants to know where it can go and catch fish, we try to provide them the information from the satellite tool and try to identify where the fish will aggregate," he added.

There are nearly six million fishermen in the country, of which 2.4 million are full-time, 1.45 million are part-time and the rest occasional. There are about 2,20,000 traditional craft, 40,000 traditional motorized craft and 52,000 mechanized boats operating in Indian waters using a wide variety of fishing gears for catching both pelagic and demersal fish.

Identification of potential fishing zones including the availability type and quantity of fish has been one of the main pre-requisite for economical fishing activity. (ANI)