PANJIM: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that the central government is working towards making the coastal security system foolproof, by considering the coastline as vulnerable.
Mr Singh was in Goa to chair a meeting of the consultative committee of the Union Home Ministry held in the State, as a departure from the norm of holding all consultative committee meetings of various ministries in New Delhi, headed by the Minister.
“We want to ensure a foolproof coastal security system for the country. To strengthen the coastal security, one must first consider the country’s coastline as vulnerable, I am not saying it is vulnerable,” Singh told media after chairing the meeting of Parliamentary Consultative Committee in Panjim on Monday.
“Our senior members of parliament gave suggestions and our home ministry will take a call on them after giving it a serious thought”.
“We have ensured coastal security to a large extent, but we want to ensure that there is no loophole anywhere. Whatever loopholes are there, we will decide on overcoming them,” Singh said.
The meeting which was attended among others, by the Minister of State for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijuju, the supremo of the NCP Sharad Pawar and the Rajya Sabha MP from Goa Shantaram Naik along with other MPs, covered wide-ranging issues and concerns regarding coastal security. They included:
1) Shortage of staff and equipment
2) The area of operations and the extent of patrolling
3) Underwater security, which was raised for the first time which elaborated on threats not just on the water but below the water surface
4) Basic old fashioned intelligence gathering through fisher folk on the coastlines and offering remuneration to fisher folk for doing this duty.
Significantly the last point about intelligence accumulation through fisher folk was raised both by the Home Minister, who gave introductory remarks and also one of the other members. Rajnath Singh reportedly said, “Fishermen are the eyes, are ears of coastal security.”
While the meeting was incidentally held in Goa, the significance of the venue state was not lost. Rajya Sabha MP from Goa Shantaram Naik stressed on the need to augment manpower and machinery in Goa’s coastal police stations and plug loopholes. At the same time it was appreciated that Goa is very much a part of the vulnerable coastal line that needs to be protected and guarded with vigil.
