m.v. Pavit drifted undetected for over 100 hours to Mumbai's shores
India's post-26/11 coastal defences have been brutally exposed by Pavit, a 1,000-tonne Panama-flagged merchant vessel, which ran aground on Mumbai's Juhu shore on Sunday, undetected by the new, three-tier security ring on which at least Rs. 700 million has been spent.
The ship, which was abandoned by its crew last month and reported sunk, drifted for more than a hundred hours through India's maritime territory before being detected late on Sunday afternoon.
The Navy, responsible for security beyond 12 nautical miles; the Coast Guard, which patrols the zone between 5 and 12 nautical miles; and the newly created maritime police, all failed to detect it.
There was no official word, though, on who was responsible for the failure — the second in recent weeks of an abandoned ship being washed up here.
In October 2010, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said India had made “significant progress” in improving its coastal defences since 26/11. In particular, he pointed to the setting up of control rooms to coordinate patrolling by the Navy, the Coast Guard and the maritime police.
Alarmed by a series of pirate attacks on maritime traffic off India's shores, Defence Minister A.K. Antony said in January this year that coastal security was on the government's “immediate agenda.”
Satish Agnihotri, Director-General of Shipping, said inquiries were needed to establish “for nearly 100 hours when the ship was in Indian waters why the detection did not happen.” He refused comment, though, on who might have been responsible, saying it would not “be appropriate on my part to talk about the sister agencies.”
Long-standing fears
Long-standing fears that terrorists could exploit gaps in India's coastal defences were underlined on 26/11, when a 10-man Lashkar-e-Taiba assault team sailed undetected into the city on a hijacked fishing boat. Experts have since warned that terrorists could also load ships with explosives, or even biological and chemical weapons.
In its report for 2010-2011, the Ministry of Home Affairs records that 183 interceptor boats had been provided to Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshadweep and Daman and Diu since April 2009. These States and Union Territories, the report says, have also benefited from Rs. 4 billion spent on 73 coastal police stations, 97 checkpoints and 58 barracks, as well as an annual grant of Rs. 1.51 billion for their operation. In addition, the Ministry of Home Affairs gave Rs. 627.75 million to the Ministry of Defence for 15 additional Coast Guard patrol ships with specialised capabilities.
Sources in the State government said Maharashtra had so far received 40 patrol boats and was waiting for the delivery of 17 more. The boats were, however, not in use because of the monsoon, the sources said. Police sources said the boats, delivered to an accelerated timetable, also suffered chronic mechanical failures, and trained crew were in short supply.
Sources in the police and the Coast Guard said the boats would be of limited use until India's fishing boats were fitted with specialised transponders, which would allow unidentified and potentially hostile vessels to be intercepted with precision.
Highly placed defence sources, however, said the trial of the three systems —satellite-based tracking, Very High Frequency and Automatic Identification System — were just beginning, and would take over a year to complete.
Global concern
Ever since 9/11, governments across the world have invested billions of dollars in port security, fearing that hijacked or unmanned ships could be used to transport weapons of mass destruction or lethal quantities of conventional explosives into urban concentrations.
The accidental detonation of 1,400 tonnes of explosives stored on SS Fort Stikine, a 7,142-gross tonne freighter, killed at least 740 people and injured more than 1,800 at Mumbai's port in 1944.
In a paper published in the South Asia Intelligence Review, maritime security expert Vijay Sakhuja recorded that India's port authorities were “conscious of scenarios such as a fully loaded tanker exploding in harbours, explosives in containers, ship hijacking and terrorists as stowaways.” However, he said, they were “constrained by the lack of adequate security personnel and equipment.”
A senior official of the Home Department admitted that ships coming to the shores of Mumbai did pose a security hazard, and he would convene a meeting between the Navy and the Coast Guard shortly to discuss the issue.
To complement Ramdas' comment - What is not alien to India is rhetoric.
The Navy / CG and DG Shipping are clueless. Imagine a vessel drifting for a month from the mid Arabian Sea on to your shores peacefully without an alarm. If we need fishermen to tell us, then why do we need these aircraft carriers, destroyers and frigates. We are lucky that there was no platoon of terrorists on that vessel. To start with the Govt must sack the Fleet Commander, CG Commandant and DG Shipping for sheer incompetence.
I wonder what we spend all this money to equip the Indian Navy and Coast Guard for when they cannot even detect a large, derelict ship drifting over 4 days to the business capital of India, that too 2 years after it suffered the most devastating terrorist attack ever launched from the sea. The Indian public reposes great faith in its armed forces but I wonder how justified that faith is; they give one the impression of bungling and incompetence.
There appear to be no one taking responsibility! What would happen if the unmanned ship hit one of our off shore oil platform.
Security has to be 24 X 7 for 365 days. One cannot have even a minute off. The job is very very demanding. If we do not have the right man to guard, what is the point in saying that we have spent 700 million, etc. The strength of a chain depends upon its weakest link. Our 3 tier system has many many weak links, which an ordinary ship has exposed.
We spent on equipments, what is the use when the government employees are not working ?? They just spend 30 days to have their salaries. How may train accidents in 2 months time ? Who cares to check on these incidents ? What action the government takes? The concern employees & seniors shound be sacked immediately without dues. Then these incidents automatically will start dropping.
The dangers on the seafront are talked about only for a few days after occurrence like the 26/11 when some dozen heavily reminded terrorists sailed from Karachi to Mumbai, landed safely in Colaba , treated themselves to a beer party at Leopold Restaurant before embarking on their killing spree. A few months back another stricken ship drifted to the very same place, Juhu, making it more a picnic spot for Mumbaikars than a cause for deep worry and deeper probing by the society and parliament of the commissions and omissions of the state, defence authorities and the shipping ministry and its regulator. Added to that is the universal phenomenon of the shipping magnates and shipping lines to drain a ship fully but stinge on their maintenance. Now they have found out one more avenue for shirking their obligations; Just to evacuate the ageing vessel allowing it to drift by natural forces to our uncared for shores! All these entities owe an explanation to the antion and it is the bounden dutry fo the MPs to aleast keep asking a few inconvenient questions every now and then. It is good that this news reports also apprporiately remind the current generation of the explosion of a ship in Mumbai docks in 1944 the effect of which is still seen at the bent railway bridge bars in Sandhurst Road. It is not known how alert the port and docks in Mumbai are for the safety and security of the ships berthing there.
Accountability and personal integrity are notions alien to India. Just read the report above for the enumeration of lame excuses and passing the buck!
Its outrageous to even comprehend that the so-called 3-tier coastal security system failed to detect a ship with no crew ! It seems, as always, Rs 700 million has been spent on 'ghost-security apparatus' (i.e., on papers).
It is a very very serious matter. Many heads must roll for such lapses and then only things will be set right in our country. How do some body say that terrosits have not been infiltrated into Mumbai city through this abandoned ship. Our politicians and the government only do lip service. Mr.Chidambaram and Mr.Anthony only talk big with least output. Our hard earned money paid through taxes are eaten away and misused by this unfit and corrupt politicians. It is our misfortune. These politicians must understand that their children and next generation will follow their footsteps and also become corrupt and suffer in lives.
Such massive expenditure and such massive failures only point to the need for CAG not to just examine accounts but also if moneys have been really spent on working assets and long life assets. CAG should be empowered to start monitoring budget allocations, acquisitions and purchases, expert reports on compliance of policies and standards and implementation of the roll out of the assets in an online realtime basis with red flags raised for the PAC to investigate also on a real time basis. So far even in such critical issues the parliamentarians seem to sleep on the pseudo comforting thought that all is well till issues are flagged! Neither the treasury benches nor the opposition benches seem to have time to devote for solving real issues facing the nation before they arise. All they seem to do allow loot of money and score brownie points when issues come to public domain. Do we really deserve such democratic leaders???
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