State’s second Coast Guard station in Gopalpur by 2012

The coastline in Odisha will have a second Coast Guard centre by 2012 as part of the Central Government's coastal security plan.

Commandant at Coast Guard Paradip District Headquarters Saroj Kumar Sahu said the State's new Coast Guard station would be set up along the Gopalpur coast near Berhampur city. The plan for the Gopalpur station was finalised during the biannual Coast Guard District Commanders' Conference earlier this month in Chennai, he informed.

Commandant Sahu said emphasis is laid on enhancing vigil and surveillance along the Odisha's 480-km coastline. The new station at Gopalpur would no doubt enhance coastal security in the State, he said, adding that it would ease the workload on the Paradip Coast Guard station, which continues to maintain a round-the-clock vigil.

The Coast Guard's agenda aims at thwarting anti-national subversive forces, sea route smuggling and infiltration, he said. In recent years, there have been frequent seizures of deep-sea trawlers, both indigenous and foreign, by the Coast Guard personnel along the coastline.

What has apparently pressed the panic button is the intrusion of foreign vessels at periodic intervals. Fishing vessels from Bangladesh, Thailand and Myanmar have trespassed into the Indian waters on over a dozen occasions during the last two years, said Coast Guard sources. The sources do not rule out the possibility of the terror link of crew members or their nexus with South-East Asian narcotics trade.

Source: The Pioneer