India with a 7500 km long coastline and about 2.02 million sq km area within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) offers immense scope for exploration and sustainable utilisation of marine resources. With this as a prominent facet, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India established the National Data Buoy Programme (NDBP) in 1997 at the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) Chennai. A network of twelve data buoys was deployed both in Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal from 1997 to 2002,......