The Coastal Police — growing by the day with more forces, assets, teeth and mandate — is set to have its permanent headquarters in Fort Kochi.
Fencing has already begun around a 10-cent land with seafront located between naval gunnery school INS Dronacharya and the Coast Guard district headquarters, after sanction was accorded to the same by the State Police chief.
The land, owned by the Police department, is strategically located and the State Public Works Department has been entrusted with the construction of a three-storey structure, which will house a training centre, guest house, control room complete with the coastal police chief’s office and a static radar station, says B.S. Mohammed Yasin, Additional Director General in-charge of Coastal Police. It would be manned round-the-clock and interlinked to the joint operations centre (JOC) for coastal security operations at the Naval Base and the Coast Guard’s remote operating station (ROS) at Fort Kochi.
The building, modelled on the Karnataka coastal police headquarters, is estimated to cost Rs. 3.3 crore, which would be sought from the Centre’s police modernisation allocation.
The State Police Chief has already recommended sanction of three deputy superintendents of police (two for either zone and one at the control room) and a bunch of ministerial staff headed by a senior superintendent for coastal police administration.
With a view to augmenting manpower capacity, the Coastal Police has so far provided week-long training to 260 direct-recruit sub-inspectors from the Kerala Police Academy. “It’s an ongoing process for us. Right now, 46 reserve sub-inspectors are trained by us at Tripunithura. This is to ensure that they get sufficient exposure to the mandate, methods and the legal framework of policing the coastal waters,” he says.
In order to arrest attrition in Coastal Police and to enhance efficiency of functioning, tenure of the personnel (all drawn from the local police) has been fixed at five years.
Mr. Yasin says there is a need to considerably enhance the period of training Coastal Police personnel, as seafaring is a completely different ballgame requiring special skills and acclimatisation. Currently, the Coast Guard trains them for four weeks prior to induction.
