Ways devised to warn fishermen straying into Sri Lankan waters

Formed by the Shipping Ministry, the Committee to Warn the Fishermen is discussing methods with mobile service providers like Airtel, Idea, Vodafone and BSNL to flash location of their boats in the high seas.

"We are finding out various options on how to warn the fishermen. We are trying to draw electronic line, physical line and that kind of things to demarcate the boundary in the sea," Vice Admiral B R Rao, Chief Hydrograpaher, Government of India, told reporters here.

Admiral Rao is also heading the Committee which has members from Tamil Nadu Maritime Board, fisheries department and nautical advisors to the government.

"The Committee was set up a month back and it will submit its report in next six months. We are only looking into the technical aspect through which the fishermen in the high seas could receive a warning before they enter someone else's territorial waters," Rao said.

Elaborating upon the mobile phone-based service to warn the fishermen he said, "It would be just like the normal service where the mobile companies flash the name and location of a place. The same can be replicated in high seas."

The second option is to install lights of specific intensity on the light houses across the high seas.

"As you move closer to the border the intensity of the light would start to drop and the moment you cross the border the light would not be visible any more," he said.

The third option to place physical buoys at regular intervals in the high seas at pre-demarcated border line. "The buoys are visible in the night also from a long distancel.

Presently we are using them to demarcate wreckages in the navigational routes of merchant vessels," he added.