Chairing a high level meeting of the top officials of Navy Coast Guard and Ministry of Defence to review coastal security measures here, the Defence Minister Mr. A. K. Antony asked the Navy Chief and the DG Coast Guard to take all steps required to ensure that incidents like MT Pavit drifting into Indian territorial waters do not reoccur. Mr. Antony directed them to ensure with all available resources at their command to secure the coast and keep the faith of the nation intact.
The meeting also reviewed the progress made in briefing of coastal security measures following the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai. A large number measures were approved by the Cabinet committee on Security in February, 2009 to improve coastal security.
Today’s meeting was held to take a stock of the implementation of the steps on coastal security, which have a far reaching implication on coastal security. It was informed that there has been an increase of sixty to eighty percent Naval ship deployment and 100 per cent increase aircraft deployment for coastal security. A total of 165 coastal security operations, 54 exercises and 259 awareness campaigns for the fishermen community along the coast has so far been conducted from January, 2009 till June this year.
The meeting was attended among others by the Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Nirmal Verma, the Defence Secretary Mr. Shashikant Sharma, Secretary Defence Production Mr. Shekhar Agarwal, Secretary Defence Finance Mrs. Vijay Laxmi K. Gupta, a special secretary Mr. R. K. Mathur, DG Coast Guard Vice-Admiral Anil Chopra and DG Acquisition Mr. Vivek Rae.