Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS)
The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), an autonomous body under the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), in collaboration with the Airport Authority of India (AAI), launched two marine information dissemination products on October 9, 2019, to enhance the livelihood of fishermen and increase their security from extreme weather conditions.
INCOIS regularly provides information, advisories, ocean data, weather forecasts, potential fishing zones (PFZ) data to beneficiaries like fishermen, Indian Navy, marine industries, shipping etc.
But due to the limited range of mobile networks and VHFs, the erstwhile information system was not able to communicate disaster warnings to the fishermen if and when they moved away from the coast beyond 10-12 km.
The new system called GEMINI (GAGAN Enabled Mariner’s Instrument for Navigation and Information) has developed on this limitation by utilising GAGAN (GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation) satellite systems of the AAI to transmit PFZ and disaster warnings to the fishermen.
The data coverage of GEMINI covers the entire India Ocean full-time, which will help in information transmission to the fishermen far away from coastal areas.
