Defence Minister A K Antony on Tuesday cautioned that India's vast coastline was still "vulnerable" as interests "inmical" to it were eyeing penetration through these areas to destabilise the country.
Addressing the International Maritime Security Conference organised by Observer Foundation in New Delhi, he said steps would soon be unveiled to put up a much tougher security apparatus all along the coastal regions and the Navy, Coastguard as well as other security agencies would be called upon to play a more vigilant role in this.
"Recently, there were reports of attempts to sneak in contrabrand through coastal lanes," the minister said pointing out that coastal regions were still vulnerable especially as quantum of trade and commerce through sea lanes was registering a phenominal growth.
While the country's mountainous and land borders had been equipped with sophisticated surveillance system, Antony said a special surveillance system had to be mooted and mounted in the shortest possible time for the coastal areas.
Echoing the warnings sounded by the minister, Naval Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta said that security forces stumbling upon some arms in sea-bound containers at the Kochi port recently proved that sea lane security had to be further tightened.
"The Kochi bust could only be the tip of the iceberg," Mehta said adding, such incidents raised fears that any type of cargo could be sneaked in.
With the ratification of the container security initiative, Navy, Coastguard and Customs would have to be extra vigilant, Mehta said.
He said under the new security system installed at various ports and container stations, now almost 96 per cent of the cargo was being screened, both in-bound and out-bound.
The naval chief also called for setting up of National Maritime Association to oversee all civil sea farings of the country.
While asserting that the government was giving top prioirty to build up an effective Navy and coastguard, the defence minister laid emphasis on modernisation and increasing the capacity of the country's ship yards.
"Our ship yards are presently taking too much time and resources to build warships. Steps have to be taken to modernise these shipyards to make them more state-of-the-art," he said.
He said steps would also soon be taken to increase the assembly lines and capacity of these ship yards as these were crucial for India to move towards self reliance in warship and submarine building.
"Our indigenisation efforts are showing results.Our marine sector has clearly understood the nuances of technological means required to build high quality merchant and service ships," he said.
To give further fillip to the indutry, the minister said government proposes to encourage larger private sector and foreign participation in ship-building to maintain world class practices and technologies.
He also said government has plans to add a hub port each along the sides of our coasts to provide necessary connectivity to the deep inland.
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