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Wednesday, Dec 03, 2008
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Systemic failure: Navy Chief

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Sureesh Mehta on Tuesday said the entry of terrorists into Mumbai by a trawler appeared to indicate a “systemic failure” by the law enforcement agencies. “It needs to be taken care of,” he told journalists on the eve of the Navy Day.

The Navy, he said, was reviving a seven-year-old proposal to ensure better coordination between various security agencies and establish a system for identifying Indian fishermen.

Greater synergy

“We are looking at creating a proper infrastructure, where all the information we get is exchanged. We had prepared the proposal seven to eight years earlier. We are now pushing it up once again to bring about greater synergy among different forces,” he said.

The Admiral is perhaps the only Chief of the Naval Staff, who has also been the Director General of the Coast Guard.

The Navy chief denied reports that an intercept about the trawler was passed on to the security forces. “Although exchange of information between security forces and intelligence agencies goes on regularly, what is important is that the available information should be actionable.”

Maintaining that the Coast Guard was regularly checking vessels, he felt the “ball game changes” if what happened as reported aboard the trawler Kuber was true. He pointed out there were 1.5 lakh registered trawlers in the country and over one-third registered in Gujarat and Maharashtra alone. Of them, 15,000 were in Mumbai proper.

“That means 5,000 people are either coming in or going out of Mumbai on a daily basis. You can be looking for Pakistani vessels but what happens if someone is in your trawler.” In Tamil Nadu too, some 500-600 boats go out to sea daily, which makes it easy for outsiders to mingle with them. “There should be some means of identifying our citizens instead of a mutilated piece of paper. There should also be some sort of token system or electronic tracking by radar.”

Admiral Mehta said the present arrangement of naval ships taking care of the security of 200 nautical miles from the coast and the Coast Guard being responsible for the inner layer would continue. The territorial waters would also continue to be looked after by the coastal police. “These are not watertight compartments but we will have better method of passing on information.”

The Navy was looking for a satellite for its exclusive use. It had placed an order with the Indian Space Research Organisation and he was confident of the satellite being available in 18 months.

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