Coast Guard begins pollution response exercise

A two-day State-level pollution response exercise under the auspices of the Coast Guard Karnataka began here on Thursday.

The exercise, the first such this year, was conducted to validate and reinforce the response mechanism for oil pollution incidents and enable the Indian Coast Guard to fine tune the actions required in such eventualities.

Other stakeholders such as New Mangalore Port Trust, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd also took part in the exercise, according to Deputy Inspector General S.B. Venkatesh, Commander, Coast Guard Karnataka.

The coast guard is responsible for marine environment protection in the maritime zones of India. It is the coordinating authority for response to oil spills in Indian waters, he said in a release.

It has drawn up a National Oil Spill Disaster Contingency Plan, and has established pollution response centres at Mumbai, Chennai and Port Blair. A robust national system for oil spill response is critical for a major economy like India as 75 per cent of the country’s oil imports are through the sea, he said.

A table top exercise simulating oil spill from a tanker was conduced on Thursday. A real time demonstration of oil spill scenario would be conducted on Friday.

Anniversary

Meanwhile, the Karnataka unit of the coast guard celebrated its 29th anniversary at its State headquarters here on Thursday.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Venkatesh recalled the origin of the headquarters from February, 1991 when a small coast guard contingent was placed here under the leadership of Deputy Commandant K. Rajendra who assumed the duties of Commander.

“Since then the headquarters has continued to grow, modify and emerge more efficient over the years,” he said.

Today, the State headquarters provides logistical, technical and administrative support to units under the command and units that call on the New Mangalore Port, he said.