The Forest personnel of Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary have been facing difficulties in conducting sea surveillance with two modern technology-based interceptor vessels lying defunct for last many months at Sasanpeta.
Though the fact has been brought to the notice of the manufacturing company to repair the interceptor vessels, but it has not yielded any results.Notably, with an aim to provide security to the endangered Olive Ridely sea turtles by ensuring to curb down illegal trawler fishing at Gahirmatha during the turtle nesting season, these vessels had been brought for patrolling in March 2016.
The interceptor vessels ,namely Gahirmatha-I and Gahirmatha –II were procured from Mumbai-based Mahindra Marine Limited, each costing Rs 3 crore.
Earlier , it became a difficult task for the Forest personnel to chase the trawlers. The Forest Department had to depend on the Coast Guard for chasing the big fishing trawlers at deep sea during the nesting season.
But , the problems in this regard was sorted out with the introduction of two interceptor vessels.However, both the vessels are not used now as they have developed technical snags."The repair work has started and within a day or two the technical snags will be fixed in Ghairmatha II vessel and it would be in operation within a week," informed Rajnagar DFO Bikash Ranjan Dash.“Meanwhile, the Forest Department has asked the Mumbai-based Mahindra Marine Limited to repair the technical snag in Ghairmatha -1 interceptor and its repair work will be started very shortly," Dash added.