By Sarosh Bana. Executive Editor, Business India

The vulnerability of India’s coastal defences was shockingly exposed when 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists arrived on Mumbai’s shores in 2008 in an Indian fishing trawler they had hijacked on the high seas en route from Pakistan. The heavily armed extremists docked amongst other trawlers and entered the bustling city undetected to carry out 12 coordinated shooting and bombing strikes over the next four days that killed as many as 165 people and wounded over 300.

Alarmed by the assault the government initiated plans to strengthen the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) and harmonise it with all other coastal defences. And, India’s Coast Guard has since metamorphosed into the world’s fourth largest, after those of the US, the UK and South Korea.

It celebrated its 45th Raising Day on 1 February by showcasing its formidable inventory of 170 surface platforms and 62 aircraft, compared to 74 and 44 in 2008. The number of ICG stations too has risen to 71, from 22 in 2008. In 2018, this smallest of India’s four military services was allocated Rs32,000 crore for an augmentation programme that aims at force levels of 200 ships and 110 aircraft by 2022. 

A coastal surveillance system (CSS) for the ICG will be operationalised this November, comprising a chain of static radars produced by state-run Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL). This coastal radar chain will serve 84 radar stations and 21 command and control centres that will provide near gap-free surveillance for tracking ships and fishing boats within a range of 15 nm in Indian waters.

Enormous area of operation

The ICG was founded as an interim force on 1 February 1977, with two small corvettes and five patrol boats transferred from the Navy, while its duties and functions were formalised in the Coast Guard Act enacted in 1978. Its Area of Responsibility (AoR) is vast, tasked as it is to defend a 7516.6 km coastline, an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of 2.01 million km² and an additional 4.6 million km² of Search and Rescue Region (SRR). 

Krishnaswamy Natarajan, Director General, ICG, exults that, despite the restrictions imposed by Covid-19, his service maintained ceaseless vigil in the EEZ by deploying about 50 ships and 12 aircraft daily. This deterrence at sea and coordinated air surveillance last year alone enabled seizure of contraband worth Rs1,600 crore, apart from 10 foreign fishing boats with 80 crew members illegally operating in the Indian EEZ.

True to its Sanskrit motto, Vayam Rakshamah, meaning ‘We Protect’, the force also successfully escorted more than 6,000 fishing boats with about 40,000 fishermen to safe harbours during the 11 cyclonic storms last year, without any loss of life. It has, besides, apprehended around 14,000 ‘miscreants’ since inception, and saved on an average one life every second day at sea.

Natarajan says the ICG created maritime history last September when it averted a major maritime disaster by dousing a raging fire onboard the 333 m Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC), MT New Diamond, which was stranded 40 nm off Sri Lanka with 300,000 tonnes of crude in its holds. One crew member died in the engine room explosion and blaze, while a second was burnt and airlifted to a Sri Lankan hospital.

The ICG surface fleet is completely indigenous and comprises 18 Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs), 41 Fast Patrol Vessels (FPVs) and 18 Air Cushion Vehicles (ACVs), all of varied classes, three Pollution Control Vessels (PCVs), 55 Interceptor Boats, 28 Interceptor Craft, four Auxiliary Barges and three Harbour Craft.