Hyderabad, Dec 19 (UNI) Union Minister for Science and Technology Dr. Harsh Vardhan inaugurated the newly constructed International Training Centre for Operational Oceanography (ITCOocean) complex at Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) here on Saturday.

The complex was a UNESCO Category 2 Centre.



The complex was dedicated to the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who had contributed significantly to the growth of Science and Technology in the country.



Speaking on the occasion, the Minister also named the academic building in ITCOocean complex as ‘Atal Bhavan and International guest house , which was also inaugurated, named as ‘ Atal Atithi Griha’.



Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) had established an International Training Centre for Operational Oceanography (ITCOocean) at INCOIS to provide training to scientists/ researchers/government officers/disaster managers/decision makers, in 2013.



Mr Harsha Vardhan said ITCOocean centre was approved by the UNESCO in November last year and this is the second such UNESCO centre in the country which conduct short term training programmes for wide variety of participants and abroad.



ITCOocean is yet another feather on the cap of INCOIS, he said the idea of setting up the training centre came when the Inter-governmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO requested to its members to finance and undertake Capacity Building Programms with an increased priority.



The UNESCO Category 2 centre was set up with the support of Government of India, he said it was established as a training facility at INCOIS to train the officers/researchers/engineers from IOC member countries.



The Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) advisories provided by INCOIS have become part of the value chain of the fishing community, the Minister said about 6.5 lakh active fishermen are regularly accessing these advisories and are using to reduce the time for fising by 60-70 per cent and to net a higher profit.

MORE UNI KNR CS 1523