The government has approved a 31,748 crore “definitive five-year action programme” for the Coast Guard, which is the defence ministry’s smallest armed force after the Army, IAF and Navy but whose role has become crucial ever since the 26/11 terror strikes in Mumbai in 2008.
Cleared by defence secretary Sanjay Mitra in August, the action programme plans to improve the force-levels of Coast Guard with 175 ships (including patrol vessels, boats) and 110 aircrafts by 2022 to bridge critical operational gaps. The programme also plans to undertake anti-piracy, anti-smuggling, oil-spill and pollution-control operations.
At present, the Coast Guard has 130 “surface units” including 60 ships (offshore patrol vessels, fast patrol vessels and pollution-control vessels), 18 hovercrafts, and 52 smaller interceptor boats/crafts. The “air units”, in turn, are limited to 39 Dornier maritime surveillance aircraft, 19 Chetak choppers and four Dhruv advanced light helicopters.
Authorities have placed an order for 16 indigenous Dhruv choppers and the procurement of 14 twin-engine EC-725 tactical choppers is in the final stages of approval now. The force will also get five more air stations/enclaves. “The existing 42 stations (20 were sanctioned after 26/11), under the five regional headquarters at Gandhinagar, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Port Blair, will also be fully-developed and made ‘smart’ with better infrastructure,” a source said.
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