With the objective of strengthening coastal security, the Government on Tuesday gave go-ahead signal for installation of 38 more coastal radar surveillance stations worth over `800 crore. At present, 46 radar stations are already functional. The need for such coastal stations arose after Mumbai terror attacks in 2008 when terrorists sneaked into the city through the sea route.
While 46 stations were made operational in the first phase, the approval for second phase of stations was given by Defence Acquisition Council(DAC) chaired by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar here. The public sector Bharat Electronics limited(BEl), which undertook the construction in the first phase costing nearly `700 crore, will be lead agency for the second phase too.
The chain of these static sensors to detect movement of all ships and boats operating in the Indian waters up to the distance of 25 nautical miles will cover the entire 7,500 km coastline of the country including nine littoral States. Once the second phase is over, the country will have “gapless electronic surveillance” of India's maritime security, Defence Ministry officials said here.
Giving details of the DAC meeting, they said apart from the 38 radar stations located strategically, the Government also approved construction of four mobile surveillance stations and this project will also form part of the second phase.
The DAC, the apex body for clearing procurements for the armed forces, also gave the nod for two Vessel Traffic Movement System(VTMS) centres and they will come up in Gulf of Kutch and Khambat, they said. The VTMS track movements of all vessels plying close to the Indian shoreline.
The radars and VTMS will be integrated with National Command Control Communication Intelligence (NC3), which is part of Information Management and Analysis Centre(IMAC) run by the Navy and Coast Guard at Gurugram(Gurgaon).
The Centre inaugurated in 2014 at a cost of `450 crore gets real time intelligence through the chain of radar stations and satellite about all ships operating in the oceans around India and is capable of tracking movement of 30,000 to 40,000 ships passing through Indian waters every day, they said.
The Navy is the lead service in ensuring security of the coastline with more than 13 other stakeholders including Coast Guard, Customs, local police, port authority and others. Efforts are also on to provide electronic identity tags to all small fishing boats in the littoral States to track their movement and detect the presence of any unidentified boat. There are more than one lakh small boats sailing in the Indian waters every day.
Besides, the coastal radar station project, the DAC also approved the construction of an intermediate level engine repair facility for MIG-29K fighter jets of the Navy. The facility will come up at Naval aircraft yard, Goa where the MIG-29K training centre is based. These 45 aircraft procured from Russia at a cost of nearly 1.5 billion dollars operate from aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya. The cost of the repair facility is yet to be finalised, officials said.