Centre approves common communication plan for ramping up coastal security

The Ministry of Home Affairs MHA has approved a common communication plan for coastal security that envisages integrating marine law enforcement agencies into a single network for better coordination and seamless exchange of missioncritical informationThe plan will be able to integrate all coastal security agencies in a common communication network with a dedicated spectrum for the purpose a senior Indian Navy official has saidThe dedicated spectrum will use a common band and it will be a big step in terms of boosting coastal security said the official of the Western Naval Command headquartered in Mumbai who declined to be namedThe construct of coastal security involves joint operations exercises and activities which require coordination between multiple agencies at the Command and Control Centre of the Navy and at the field be it ashore or at sea he saidSo communication between agencies and units involved with coastal security especially those operating at sea plays a vital role in crossagency coordination and seamless exchange of missioncritical information on realtime basis so as to enable effective conduct of coastal security activities according to the officialThis facet received an impetus after the recent appointment of a National Maritime Security Coordinator to oversee national maritime issues the official saidAgainst this backdrop the MHA had constituted a task force comprising representatives of all central and state agencies concerned to facilitate effective communication by coastal security stakeholdersThe MHA recently promulgated a common communication plan for coastal security that will be able to integrate all coastal security agencies in a common communication network he said adding the central ministry approved the plan last weekAlso Read Mortal remains of eight Indians killed in Maldives garage fire repatriatedIn a related development the official said spacebased transponders for fishing boats being developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation ISRO underwent successful trials in Gujarat and Tamil NaduIdentification and tracking of illegitimate fishing boats is a major challenge in ensuring coastal security due to the huge number of boats plying in Indian waters The space transponders will help to overcome this problem the official pointed outTo overcome this challenge a project was initiated by the ISRO to develop satellitebased transponders for fishing boats especially those less than 20 metres in length he saidThese were installed on fishing boats in Gujarat 408 Tamil Nadu 507 and Puducherry 46 for trials After the success of the trials coastal state authorities have been asked to implement their fitment in all mechanized fishing vessels the official addedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever