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Introduction
The Basic role of a Hydrographic Office’s (HO) is to provide essential hydrographic Services to support safe and efficient navigation and promote national maritime development for the nation. In recent years HOs all over the world are playing leading role in development of Electronic Navigational Charts for marine community so that vessels can navigate safely on their voyage across oceans.

Navigation of ships in and out of the nation's coastal waters and channels could be made safer by improving the Navigational systems by adopting new navigation technologies. In recent years, well-publicized shipping disasters have called into question the safety of life at sea both to the mariners and ocean environment, the effectiveness of navigation technology thus is facing challenges and looking into future for a technology that the Navigation system uses. Presently although Navigational systems for the most part are safe, but could be made more safer with improvements in onboard navigational systems performance by better use of new technologies including improved coordination of vessel traffic and using digital/electronic navigational charts for improved safety.

Innovations in navigation technology hold significant potential for reducing operational risk and improving safety performance, and their introduction should be expedited. Use of Electronic Chart Display and Information Systems (ECDIS) to replace paper charts holds particular promise. When combined with data from Global Positioning System, satellites, electronic charting systems can provide accurate real-time positions, as well as steering guidance, automatic hazard warnings, and a permanent navigation record. However, the full benefits of this and other new technologies are not likely to be gained in the near term unless deliberate measures are taken to promote their introduction. A comprehensive & specific familiarization for use of the ECDIS should be made before implementing this new navigation technology. Such measures must include establishment of technical and operating standards and improvement in charting of water depths and other hydrographic data. Professional training in the use of these new technologies is essential

The international nature of the shipping and maritime industry is well known therefore in order to improve standards and to recognized the actions required to improve safety in maritime operations would require more efforts at an international level rather than by individual countries acting unilaterally and without co-ordination with others, with this aim it was decided that Electronic Navigational Charting is such a source that would increase safety of navigation and facilitate everyday mariner’s work. First electronic charts and related systems had appeared on the market in early 80s. These charts were merely scanned and digitized paper chart reproductions-so called raster electronic charts.

The quality and contents of nautical charts is the cornerstone of safety at sea, and is strictly controlled by international agreements. Thus the industrial development of technically elegant solutions is not enough, the products must meet a well-defined standard for international approval of IMO/IHO. As a result an international S-57 standard has been established.

ENC Availability issues
The lack of comprehensive ENC coverage along major shipping routes has been significant and also there was confusion about policies regulating the use of ENC and paper chart, furthermore, uncertainty was also about using SENC in ECDIS when the original ENC produced by a national HO are available to the user. This ambiguity was resolved in July 2002, when the revised version of SOLAS Chapter V came into force, and the status of ECDIS and ENCs has been clarified, and as a result HOs, if they wish, can support delivery of their ENC data in SENC formats.

With this in mind, the IHO recently conducted a survey to determine from its Member States how many ENCs have already been produced. The findings of this survey are quite revealing, and full details can be found on the IHO website (http://iho.shom.fr/). One of the main conclusions from the survey was the large number of ENCs that are already available, along with a significant amount of ENC data that are either in production or which have been produced but which are not currently available to the mariner (shown in red and blue respectively in the Fig 1).


Fig 2 Various Sources of Data

Augmentation of ENCs
Presently the hydrographic community is under a transition phase form old paper chart days to more sophisticated digital chart days ahead The lack of official S-57 data has created lacuna in the navigation market and this lead to the development of non-official data form private data producers (Fig 2). Today both official and non-official data exists in the international marine community and the mariner is thus bent to take derived products from private vendors although the risk is high. The priority available for using data as envisaged by mariner today is Official ENC Data-->Digital Nautical Charts from NIMA-->Private Vector Data--> Official Raster Charts--> Non-Official Raster Charts


Figure 1 Status of ENC Production March 2003