New Delhi: In the last two years after the
26/11 attacks on Mumbai, the Indian Coast Guard has carried out 26 operations in coordination with other maritime security agencies on basis of intelligence inputs provided to thwart
any such assault from the sea route.
On basis of information provided by intelligence
agencies, the Coast Guard carried out 26 operations in the
last 22 months to nab "rogue" boats and trawlers with
terrorists but no one has been so far apprehended, Defence
Ministry sources said here.
During the same period, the Coast Guard along with other
sea-faring agencies such as the Navy, Customs, Fisheries
Department and the marine police have carried out 28 exercises
to expand their vigil and enhance cooperation in preventing
any such attacks in future, they added.
After the attacks, the sources said, Coast Guard has been
organising a similar exercise every month to enhance the
co-ordination between all the stake-holders in maintaining sea
security.
The force is using its aerial assets including the
Dornier maritime surveillance aircraft, choppers and around 20
ships to keep an eye on the Indian territorial waters for such
elements at any given time, they added.
After the attacks, the Cabinet Committee on Security
(CCS) had sanctioned 40 ships, 20 boats and 42 aircraft in
February last year.
For an effective surveillance, the government has also
sanctioned a coast guard plan to deploy radars, cameras and
sensors atop all light-houses in coastal areas to detect and
identify ships close to shores in a two-phased project.
In the first phase, 46 such stations would be established
at a cost of Rs 350 crore by the end of 2011 and the inputs
gathered by the network would be shared with all the agencies
concerned on a real-time basis, the sources said.
Another 56 such stations are planned to be established
in the second phase of the project.
Recently the force commissioned a Coast Guard Station
at Murud Janjira on September 30, which will help it to plug
the gap between Goa and Mumbai as earlier there was no such
station along the important sea route between the two
stations.
PTI
