The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) is embarking on an ambitious plan to establish new ‘shore stations’ along India’s vast coastline. According to Director T.M. Balakrishnan Nair, these stations will significantly enhance ocean observations and facilitate much quicker responses to unfolding maritime situations.
“We need to maintain continuous vigilance over our seas,” Nair emphasized. “While our core research operations will remain at our Hyderabad headquarters, we are strategically planning to open satellite centers on both the east and west coasts.”
The first of these crucial shore stations, operating under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), is slated for development in the picturesque Andaman Islands. Nair confirmed, “We’ve formally requested up to five acres of land from the local administration. Once we receive the necessary approvals, construction will commence, and a dedicated team of research personnel will be deployed.”
Adding to its advanced capabilities, INCOIS is also preparing to install an innovative under-sea cable observatory on the Andaman seabed, further deepening its data collection efforts.
Nair highlighted that leading maritime nations, such as the United States, have successfully implemented decentralized ocean observation systems with localized data processing. This distributed approach enables more effective monitoring of the socio-economic risks tied to oceanic events, a critical factor as climate change increasingly impacts coastal communities.
INCOIS currently manages several observation posts equipped with buoys and tide gauges, which continuously transmit real-time data via satellite. However, Nair underscored that the new shore stations will dramatically cut down response times for urgent incidents like oil spills, where sole reliance on satellite data may not be sufficient.
“We’re also actively exploring the use of drones for rapid coastal assessments,” he added. Parallel plans are in motion to establish similar shore stations along the coastlines of Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.
“We have a particular interest in setting up a station near the Krishna-Godavari basin on the east coast,” Nair stated. “We will engage with the Andhra Pradesh government to secure suitable land, as our observations will bring substantial benefits to the state.”
Discussing the ‘Tsunami Ready Programme,’ Nair proudly announced that eight villages in Kerala are soon to join the 26 villages in Odisha that have already achieved full readiness for tsunami threats. “We also aim to extend this program to vulnerable coastal villages in Gujarat and Maharashtra, which are not yet covered,” the INCOIS director concluded.