Following Fish! An app for fishermen

By the end of February, fishermen off the coast of Mangaluru could be reeling their catch in! Instead of gazing at the sea with one eye on the climate and the other on fish activity below the sea's surface, fishermen can rely on a whole new friend — their mobile!

Fisher Friend Mobile App, (FFMA), dubbed \"a unique, single window solution for the holistic shore-to-shore needs of the fishing community,\" is likely to be available on Google Play store by next month. It will show the Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) and provide information like, weather and ocean reports to any fishermen.

M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in partnership with Qualcomm, with inputs from INCOIS has developed this Fisher Friend Mobile Application which at present is serving the fishermen of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. \"The app was designed in consultation with the fishermen and based on their needs. Considering their suggestions the app was revised about 21 times. After the pilot project of about a year, it was launched in three states in 2014. Over 5018 fishermen have this application installed on their phone. As the app is not available on Google Play store at present, it is installed through our village resources and knowledge centres in these states. We are working on the app and want to launch it on google play story by end of February,\" MSSRF Director (Information, Education and Communication) Nancy J. Anabel told this newspaper

The new app would be available in about 10 languages spoken in the coastal states as well as English. As the app provides information about PFZ, it would be easy for the fishermen to identify the spot where the fish are, instead of wasting their time and fuel.