Empowering fishermen in the State through the Mobile Advisory Services has enriched them and proved much beneficial for their community.
The Department of Fisheries and Animal Resources Development (DoFARD) has launched a four-year programme to include at least one lakh fishermen in a year through this drive. Within eight months of the programme, 99,695 fishermen have been enrolled in the programme, and till date 83,686 SIM cards have been activated, said a senior departmental official. Department Secretary Bishnupada Sethi made a review of the programme last week.
During this period, 5,54,791 messages have been listened by the beneficiaries, which is facilitated by the IFFCO Kisan Services limited (IKSl), which is implementing the high-tech programme with support of the DoFARD. IKSl Green SIM cards are provided to fishermen, who are able to hear the voice messages regularly. The fish farmers are made aware about various issues pertaining to their business and weather alerts along with other relevant issues.
All the active fishermen engaged in sea, river and reservoir and active fish farmers and entrepreneurs having a minimum one acre of farm are the programme’s target group.
In order to generate awareness among fishermen and fish farmers further, quiz competitions are being held through mobile service, which has turned out to be popular, said a user. Helpline 534351 has been opened to provide any support in this regard, and fishermen are taking advantage of the facilities, said IKSl sources.
The IMD, INCOIS, FISHCOFED, ICAR and some other agencies have been roped in as knowledge partners in this programme while strategic partners are the CDA, ICZM and MPEDA.