OdishaPlus Bureau
Impressed with the handling of natural disasters by the Odisha Government, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has expressed its interest to work with the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA). ISRO, the technical arm of Ministry of Space of Union Government, has proposed to the State Government to establish close working arrangements with OSDMA.
Director ISRO, PG Diwakar has written to the Odisha Government in this regard while appreciating the efforts of the State in handling super storm FANI and other natural disasters thereby saving million lives. Earlier, ISRO had prepared ‘Odisha Flood Hazard Atlas’.It now wants to work closely with OSDMA to address near real time disaster monitoring support.
With high-tech facilities available with ISRO, Odisha is likely to immensely benefit with this proposal. ISRO has also suggested that Odisha with huge coastline and sea, its fishermen could use NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) for their equirement.NavIC is the Indian version of the American Global Positioning System (GPS).
NavIC based devices could be used for the safety of fishermen community and also for the information on potential fishing catch. These are simple devices that work on mobile platform with local language interface. These are also popular in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.
These gadgets, the size of a soapbox, are basically ‘Receivers’, which produces a beep when alerts are received by the device. NavIC helps the fishermen inside the sea to know weather and cyclone updates. NavIC provides accurate real time position, navigation and timing services over India and region extending around 1500 Kilometer around Indian Borders.
The Odisha Government will be able to help fishermen in deep sea for getting near real time disaster information and save precious lives. The Government will be working out modalities for both the initiatives.