Coast Guard to Add 50 Vessels, 40 Aircraft to Fleet in Four Years

The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) will acquire 50 new vessels and 40 aircraft in the next four years, a top official said on Wednesday.

K. Natarajan, Additional Director General and Coast Guard Commander Western Sea Board, said the force will have 200 platforms (boats and ships) by 2022.

In the next two years, sub-resource centres will be set up at Mangaluru, Goa and Kochi to improve the preparedness of the ICG, which is the central coordinating authority for dealing with oil spills in South Asia.

Inspector General Vijay Chafekar, Coast Guard Commander, Regional HQ (West) said, “This will be a local area response for action in case of an oil spill. There are refineries all along the western coast and oil tankers pass through key areas.”

He was speaking on the sidelines of the 7th edition of the national-level Pollution Response Exercise, which concluded on Wednesday. Now, there are only three main resource centres at Mumbai, Chennai and Port Blair, which dispatch equipment to the nearest harbour in case of a oil spill.

Delegates from 18 countries took part in the three-day exercise, which ended with a simulated response of the ICG to an oil spill off the coast of Mumbai. The ICG’s pollution control vessel ICGS Samudra Pavak was part of the exercise along with 11 ICG ships. An ICG Dornier maritime reconnaissance aircraft and a Chetak helicopter participated in the exercise, which was jointly conducted with the MbPT, ONGC and the Shipping Corporation of India.

Captain Mosayed, Coast Guard Secretary, Bangladesh Coast Guard, said, “Now, we can prepare our personnel to respond to such issues more effectively and train them. No one nation can address all the issues at sea and collaboration between countries is key to respond to any crisis.”

Source:TH

Image Courtesy:FE