ISRO to develop low cost Emergency Locator Transmitters

To ensure timely help to fishermen in distress in midsea, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has planned to develop low cost version of Emergency Locator Transmitters, a senior official said today.

To ensure timely help to fishermen in distress in midsea, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has planned to develop low cost version of Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELT), a senior official said today.

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"The existing ELT costs about Rs 10,000, which perhaps is unaffordable for fishermen. Hence, ISRO is planning to manufacture low cost ELT on a larger scale so that fishermen could benefit from it," Manager of Bangalore-based Indian Mission Control Centre of ISRO NK Shrivastava said.

The ELTs can be activated anywhere and the signal sent by it would be picked up by INMCC and relayed to the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC), which will inturn alert the Coast Guard, he told reporters here on the sidelines of an Indian Coast Guard rescue exercise.

He said the device was highly sophisticated because of the inclusion of digitally coded unique identification information in the beacon message, including location of the distress site based on Global Positioning System.