Can Fish Talk on Mobile?

The safety and well being of those venturing into the sea to get
their livelihood is a primary concern for fisherwomen, who anxiously wait for
the safe return of the fishermen in the wee hours daily. But for fishermen, the
daily fish catch is the only thing they worry about.

There is a saying down south that you don't need to work if
you know how to fish. Technology has its impact on every aspect of life and
fishing is no exception. Fishermen use fish traps or nets to catch fish. Now,
the mobile phone will act as fish trap and will guide fishermen toward the fish.

In a bid to help fishermen, Tata Teleservices has partnered with
Qualcomm, the Nasscom Foundation, the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, and
the Indian Center for Oceanographic Studies, to run a pilot project that will be
launched sometime this year. The users of Tata Indicom will be able to locate
the exact position of fish in the sea on their cell phone.

What an Idea!

"Every market has a space and every space has a market. You just need
to have the eye to identify it," says Yogesh Kochhar, head, Corporate
Sustainability, Tata Teleservices.

On a trip to South India, Kochhar and his team noticed that not
too many people use mobile phones in coastal regions. People in coastal areas
have minimum connections with the outer world. They get married in nearby
locations and everybody is engaged in fishing. Therefore, logically, they don't
need a mobile phone. "When I asked a person why he doesn't use a mobile,
the person laughingly said, 'because fish don't use mobile phones,'"
says Kochhar.

Though Kochhar laughed off the reply as casual and humorous,
deep inside he was troubled and shocked by it. There were two options available
to his team. The first and easier one was to laugh off the idea about fish using
mobile phones, and the second was to take it as a challenge and make fish talk.
But how would fish use mobile phones?

After few brainstorming sessions, they finally got the
underlying statement in the fisherman's reply. The idea was to connect
fishermen to the fish through mobile phones. Kochhar was quite happy with this
finding, though he knew it was not going to be an easy task. "At least I
got an objective and am very clear about what to do. The only remaining part is
execution," exclaims Kochhar.

Minds at Work (From L-R): Srinivas Rao, COO, Tamil Nadu Circle-TTSL; Yogesh Kochhar, head, Corporate Sustainability, TTSL; Prof MS Swaminathan and Umapathy V, DGM-HR-member TTSL-CS Guid at the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation

Idea Meets Invention

After initial planning, TTSL discussed the plans with the MS Swaminathan
Research Foundation, Puducherry, to identify the community and area where the
pilot can be carried out. Together they decided on Veerampattinam on the
outskirts of Puducherry.

Kochhar went to meet the director of the Indian Center for
Oceanographic Studies (INCOIS), and spent a day with him talking on the possible
roadmap. INCOIS is an organization that maps the sea region throughout the
country on different parameters. They research on the availability of resources
in the sea. But they don't provide any report on fish availability.

After several discussions, it was found that INCOIS provides the
location of chlorophyll in seawater. "This was something like a eureka for
us. Since chlorophyll is life for them, wherever there is chlorophyll in the
sea, fish will be there," Kochhar says happily. "There is a
misconception that fish is available everywhere in the sea. I have personally
seen fishermen going in to the sea and after three-four hours coming with as low
as a 10 kg catch," he adds.

Invention Drives Execution

On the execution level, the challenge was to map the longitude and latitude
of the places where there is chlorophyll in the sea. In addition, the
measurement of wave heights and wind velocity was also important to forecast
weather conditions and to prevent fishermen from going into the sea during bad
weather.

When all this was done, TTSL developed a special application
with Qualcom, called BREW. This application downloads data from the satellite
that maps chlorophyll in the sea on servers installed at the MS Swaminathan
Research Foundation, and this will uplink through the TTSL network via the BREW
application, thus showing fishermen where the fish are available in the sea,
also informing them about wave heights and wind velocity. This will bring down
fishermen's time at sea, keep them safe, and help them return to the shore
with a bigger catch. The MSSRF is regularly keeping a track of the developments,
and the initial responses have been encouraging.

And things won't end there. The objective is that the phone
also provides fishermen with market linkages. "There is a great disparity
in the delivery and price mechanism. Fishermen get at least ten times less than
the price at which fish are available to customers like you and us,"
laments Kochhar. "We will try to remove those middle layers that make most
of the profit and bear minimum risk," he adds. Fishermen will be provided
with information on mandi prices across coastal areas and it will be connected
to MCX in the near future.

On the whole, through the use of Tata Indicom mobile phones, not
only will fishermen get big catches, the phone will also ensure the best price
for their catch. Simply put, this project hopes to be a benchmark for the power
of communication.

Going Ahead

TTSL is eyeing the 8,100 km coastal area of the country as a business
opportunity for this service. Kochhar doesn't forget to thank his friends from
Qualcom, who looked over the application development part, MSSRF, INCOIS, and
some NGOs involved in the project. Rajiv Narayan, vice president, Corporate
Affairs, TTSL, guided the whole project. Kochhar sums up by saying: "There
was a space and we created the market."

Fish search chlorophyll for their life and now the mobile will
also search chlorophyll. Both are looking for the same thing, but the purpose is
different. While the fish looks for chlorophyll to save its life, the mobile
will search for it to save the livelihood of fishermen.

Kumar Anshuman


anshumank@cybermedia.co.in