Chennai: To ensure timely help to fishermen
in distress in midsea, Indian Space Research Organisation
(ISRO) has planned to develop low cost version of Emergency
Locator Transmitters (ELT), a senior official said Saturday.
"The existing ELT costs about Rs 10,000, which perhaps
is unaffordable for fishermen. Hence, ISRO is planning to
manufacture low cost ELT on a larger scale so that fishermen
could benefit from it," Manager of Bangalore-based Indian
Mission Control Centre of ISRO N K Shrivastava said.
The ELTs can be activated anywhere and the signal sent
by it would be picked up by INMCC and relayed to the Maritime
Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC), which will inturn alert the
Coast Guard, he told reporters here on the sidelines of an
Indian Coast Guard rescue exercise.
He said the device was highly sophisticated because of
the inclusion of digitally coded unique identification
information in the beacon message, including location of the
distress site based on Global Positioning System.
PTI
