THE COAST

Too many monitors, not enough coordination

With no sign yet of the Centre’s promised apex maritime agency for coordinated coastal security, five state and central departments are monitoring Maharashtra’s 720-kilometre coastline, home to eight lakh fishermen in 382 villages. In addition, there is also a sixth unit, a joint patrol of the first five. The result is confusion.

After 26/11, the Navy and then the Coast Guard took up active surveillance along the coastal stretch. The other units on patrol are the state fisheries department, Maharashtra Maritime Board, Customs and the joint team.

Fishermen say there are so many units, each with its own set of rules to impose, that they are confused. They also complain of highhandedness of Naval and Coast Guard officials who, they say, often confiscate fishing and boat licences.

“Security has been enhanced and they don’t let us pass within 1.5 nautical miles of the ONGC platform (Bombay High), which is on one of our regular fishing routes. If a refinery stands in way of a national highway, will you change your route or just go around it?” said Ramdas Sandeh, president, Maharashtra State Fishermen’s Cooperative Federation. “They just give us notices and ask us to follow their policies. They arrest us and take our licences but give us no information on how to get those back.”

The Coast Guard and the Navy, along with other agencies, recently started a database of all fishing villages for better ground intelligence. Top Coast Guard and Naval officials have admitted that coastal surveillance cannot be foolproof without help from fishermen. The state has 11,823 registered mechanised boats and 8,228 registered non-mechanised ones. “The sea is vast and even if an unidentified vessel is spotted, it cannot be tracked always as it can go in any of four directions. Only local fishermen can inform us of any extra boats in their fishing areas,” said a Coast Guard official.

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