MANGALURU: The Coastal city of Mangaluru, which is a processing centre for imported Hydrocarbons, is sitting on a Tinder Box and could be used by the enemy any time, said Bhaskar Rao , ADGP, Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP)."This is due to not lack of fire-fighting facilities, but they are not commensurate with requirement," he added.Bhaskar Rao made this shocking revelation during a two conference on ‘Coastal security: Challenges and concerns’ at Mangalore University. It was hosted by department of political science of Mangalore University and the Institute of Contemporary Studies , Bengaluru. The event was attended by expertise in coastal security, which included IPS and IRS officers as well others.Rao, who was closely connected with coastal security, an emergent area of shallow waters policing in the aftermath of Mumbai Terror attack, said that India has been compromised from the sea right from 1 century BC, where explorers, trader, invaders brought to present day times - and we have woken up only after 26/11."In spite of this, there hasn’t been much change. Recently there have been accident in the sea, he said citing the example of a sailing boat with Russian couple that drifted close to Mumbai harbour and foreign ship hitting a fishing boat off Thiruvananthapuram coast and others," he noted.Further, Ministry of Home Affairs has implemented the phase-1 and 2 of coastal security police scheme after it was felt that Coast Guard and Indian Navy was inadequate in serving and protecting shallow water maritime borders. Rao said that “Navy and Coast Guard can neutralise visible physical enemies. But times have changed and technology has made such intrusion easier and given access to sensitive digital info.”Even though the country has all security aspects covered, some forces are bent on disrupting the smooth running of the country by acts of terrorism , hurt the economic interest by bringing in fake Indian currency notes, gold, narcotics, weapons and pollute territorial waters.What are challenges in paying attention to strengthen shallow water policing? Rao lists several of them.We have not mapped and zoned the undersea territory to be made secure; Indian Navy and Coast Guard do not have any assets to shallow water policing; coastal security police does not have skilled, trained or knowledgeable manpower, officers and leadership. Shallow water policing has no state or national level academy to train its personnel.Another major setback is the supervision, control and monitoring of fishing trawlers, boats, and dhows is non-existent and exists on paper as there is no mechanism to do so. “The Vessel Traffic Management System is restrained only to bigger ships. There is no record of small boats, where they go, whether they return or not, what purpose they go out of sea.”Fisheries Act is more or less toothless tiger and obsolete. It is more in violation than enforcement due to lack of trained manpower and infrastructure. “The identity cards issued to fishermen without any electronic readers is waste of resources,” Rao points out.Several states don’t have Maritime Board which addresses several issues of the coast under the subject of the State List and Concurrent list.When it comes to marine environment its totally neglected. Rao says that there is no mapping, no enforcement and no regulation. “None including forest department consider under sea environment as flora and fauna. This under sea is rampantly poached and vandalised by high power trawlers. The sea also has become underground dumping for untreated sewage, chemicals and hydrocarbons.”Other issues are: Taking fishermen community into confidence to gather intelligence, management of tourist traffic and strengthening security in fish docks, minor ports, Islands, light house and backwaters. “Shallow water security can be enhanced only with the subsidiary multi agency coordination meetings and equipping the maritime domain of local police. I have participated in Sagar Kavach Operation led by ICG, found them to be too predictable,” feels Rao.

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