Policing of Kerala’s littoral waters will get a fillip with the commissioning of 10 coastal police stations, in addition to the existing eight, through the year as part of the second phase of Coastal Police expansion.
The government has to accord sanction for an additional lot of 710 personnel to man the upcoming stations and the 20-odd patrol boats allocated to them.
“While the stations at Kumbla and Thrikkarippur are ready for inauguration, the ones at Thalassery and Vadakara will be up in a month’s time.
The date for Ponnani is March 31. Vammenad and Arthunkal are slated for completion in April and May respectively,” Mohammed Yasin, Additional Director General, Coastal Police, told The Hindu .
Besides, acquisition of land for setting up costal police stations at Elathur, Anchuthengu, and Poovar is in the final stage. “We are fast-tracking the process with a view to completing the construction of these stations in six months so as to operate them by December this year,” he said.
The sanctioned manpower, including technical staff, for operating the patrol boats in the first phase of eight stations is 572. However, there is a shortage of 161 personnel.
The requirement of 710 personnel proposed for the ongoing second phase includes 560 police personnel (also counting 10 circle inspectors and 30 sub-inspectors) and 250 technical staff.
“We have requested recruitment of seasoned and professional sailors from the Navy, Coast Guard, and the BSF Marine Wing on superannuation to fill vacancies in the technical cadres,” said Mr. Yasin.
He said besides the 24 boats operated by the Coastal Police in the State, 20 more 12-tonne boats would be allocated to the upcoming coastal police stations at the rate of two boats per station.
“This would ensure that we have an impressive flotilla of 44 boats, enough to police the coastal waters dotted with 187 notified landing points and 17 minor harbours.
During the last Theeravetta half-yearly coastal security exercise, 82 per cent of our fleet got deployed. We have been able to maintain an impressive rate of serviceability of boats and are able to deploy 77 per cent of them at any given time,” said Mr. Yasin.
