This document is a compilation of case studies of fishers who have benefitted from the programme initiated by the collaborative project of M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) and Indian National Centre
for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS).

Enhancing the capacities of the fishers to improve their livelihood opportunities in the coastal villages is the focus area of this MSSRF-INCOIS project. The partnership that was initiated in 2009, aim at building the capacity of the fishers to effectively access and use the scientific information of INCOIS services such as Ocean State Forecast (OSF), Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) and disaster alerts. This MSSRF-INCOIS endeavour which targeted initially 40 fishing villages across six districts in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry,
has today been scaled up to cover 611 fishing villages across 29 coastal districts of five states such as Tamil Nadu,Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Odisha and Union Territory of Puducherry. This is a reflection of the overwhelming demand for ESSO-INCOIS services from the fishing community. Thus, it is encouraging to find that more than 25000 fisher folks from these 29 coastal districts access the services on a daily basis through various communication tools/ technologies; as of now nearly two lakh fishers have been reached through this Fisher Friend programme. The OSF and PFZ advisories enable the fishers to take critical
decisions that help improve their livelihood and ensure safety at sea.

M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation