By Maushumi Chakravarty
India has a long coastline of 7517 kilometre and 95 % of trade by volume is moved by sea. The Directorate General of Lighthouses plays an important role in guiding the vessels and facilitating this most important economic activity.
In the present day context, navigation is a common term. When the concept of trade developed and people started venturing into sea in search of new land, the importance of navigation for homing became very essential. Lighthouses in the very primitive form, a mound during day time and burning of firewood during night time, would have met this vital need.
The first known lighthouse to mankind was built by Ptolemy II in the third century BC sometime between 280 and 247 BC on the island of Pharos at Alexandria, Egypt. With a height variously estimated between 393 and 450 ft (120 and 140 metres), it was among the tallest manmade structures on Earth for many centuries and was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
As far as India is concerned, the first reference of a Lighthouse is found in the Tamil Epic, Silppadhikaram written in 2nd Century AD where it is mentioned that a beautiful lighthouse was built near Kaveripattinam so that ships could easily locate the then port of Poompuhar.
Fully recognizing the historical importance of such location and also catering to the need of local populace and shipping in general, a new lighthouse at Poompuhar has been dedicated to the nation in the month of October 2010.
The system of management of lighthouse services in British India included Myanmar, Pakistan, Bangladesh and also various Princely States. Later, the imperial government decided to administer about 32 Lighthouses in the six lighthouse districts of Aden, Karachi, Bombay, Madras, Calcutta and Rangoon.
After the Lighthouse Act, 1927 came into force, the administration of lighthouses in Aden District was transferred to Her Majesty’s Government in the U.K. but the Government of India continued to administer the lighthouses in Persian Gulf financed from the Persian Gulf Lighting Services Fund.
At the time of Independence, administration of only 17 general lighthouses was vested with the Government of India. Administration of another 50 lighthouses was taken over from the princely maritime states. In order to cope with developmental activities, the Lighthouse Department was constituted as a separate Department under the Ministry of Transport. It was renamed in the year 2002 as Directorate General of Lighthouses and Lightships under the Ministry of Surface Transport.
Presently the Directorate has 179 lighthouses, 23 differential global positioning system, 64 Radar Beacons and 23 deep sea buoys.
Most of the Lighthouses are provided with Differential Global Positioning System to give accurate bearings to the modern vessels which are equipped with DGPS receivers. The Directorate DGPS Chain of 23 stations, seamlessly covers the Indian waters and provides better than 5 metres positional accuracy up to 100 Nautical Miles from the coast.
The Directorate envisages improvement of the existing visual aids, radio aids and establishment of new lighthouses along the coastline in a uniform manner. The ultimate objective of the Directorate shall be to provide a lighthouse at an interval of 30 Nautical Miles all along the coastline and islands by the year 2017 so that a seamless visual and radio coverage of the entire Indian coastline is available.
