Coastal Defences are Still at Sea

Wide gaps remain in India’s seaside security. The country cannot afford such vulnerability.

Ajmal Kasab sailed 550 KM from Karachi to Mumbai without any questions asked. He and his mates must have been nervous—this was going a little too smoothly—but they needn’t have been, to the shame of the entire Indian maritime establishment that day. No naval ship stopped them on the high seas. No coast guard caught them near the Indian coast. No one saw them hop ashore near a fisherman’s stretch alongside a busy road that links Nariman Point with Cuffe Parade, two of India’s biggest business districts, dotted with skyscrapers.

That the ten terrorists of 26/11 chose to land not in some hidden coastal nook pictured in cinema smuggling scenes, but bang in the midst of South Mumbai’s busiest area, speaks of their audacity as much as the esteem in which they held India’s maritime patrols. Alas, one whole year later, our defences against seaborne attacks are no better. The sea still presents an almost open invitation to anyone with weapons and the will to use them against us. This is so almost all along both the eastern and western coastlines.

There was much talk of beefing up defence forces after the attack on Mumbai. A coordinated coastal security strategy was the buzz phrase. But any strategy needs resources. “It is a simple capability problem,” says a senior Coast Guard official, “We have only 50 vessels and 40 small boats to patrol the 2.2 million sq miles of our exclusive economic zone. With that sort of force presence, there are gaps aplenty. Sometimes days go by between two points 100 miles apart with almost no presence.”

Scarier still, only about 10 boats of the Coast Guard are advanced offshore vessels that can deter a large-scale invasion from the sea (it’s a big blue expanse), and only about 10 interceptor boats are available for the two seaboards. The Ministry of Defence has spoken of a big boost in the works, but acquisitions in India seem to take forever. As many as 14 different requests are thought to be pending with the Ministry for equipment such as fast patrol boats, surveillance radars, on-shore vessels and so forth. The Coast Guard has started training the 3,000 new personnel it hopes to add to its existing 8,000 over the next two years. However, without the boats, they’ll have little to do.

“The capability of the Coast Guard to ensure coastal security is woefully inadequate,” assesses Commodore VS Vasan of the Chennai-based Centre for Asian Studies, where he works on maritime security, “They have about 20 boats that are really sea-worthy for long range patrol and only a handful of aircraft. A big order book is pending—it took seven years for the first boats to arrive which were ordered way back in 2000. At the procurement level, there is a crisis.”

India’s two state-owned shipyards, Garden Reach in Kolkata and Goa Shipyard, have been tardy in their response to the orders. They were to supply 60 boats of different sizes to the Coast Guard and Indian Navy by August 2010. Till date, only about 15 have been delivered. The upshot? The country still doesn’t have what it takes.

The Indian Navy fancies itself as a ‘blue water’ fleet, a force that can mount an armed operation far in the deep yonder. In reality, it is struggling even to meet ‘brown water’ needs. Its ability to control the sea is hamstrung by the fact that its sole aircraft carrier, Viraat, is already 50 years old. Its fleet of Sea Harriers is down to 12, of which only eight are usually in flying condition. What’s more, there are problems in firing air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles from both Sea Harriers and Sea King helicopters that the Navy has aboard Viraat—which is more of a target than an attack platform for the Indian Navy.

Even more critical in today’s information age—which has wrought its own ‘revolution in military affairs’—are gaps in the Navy’s surveillance capabilities. Its ageing fleet of Tu-142 aircraft is being replaced by ultra-modern P8 maritime reconnaissance planes bought from the US. If all goes well, these will let the Navy scan a very large area along both the coasts and, for once, give the country an eye on what’s going on.

It’s not easy. The seas around the Subcontinent have nearly 1,200 small and large uninhabited islands. Home Ministry sources say that a special programme has been charted out to catalogue these islands, but it’s impossible to keep a close check on all these islands. Most surveillance is driven either by tip-offs or suspicion. Some islands off the Gujarat coast, for example, are under the scanner on intelligence reports of their use by terror operatives from Pakistan.

Everything cannot always be under watch. To avoid being blindsided, there is no alternative to intelligence of high quality. For now, the emphasis is on quantity. The Indian Navy has an air base just behind Nariman House, location of a Jewish centre in Colaba which was attacked on 26/11 by terrorists. “These days, it is a busy place. On any given day, 10 to 20 helicopter sorties take off from here,” says a senior source in the Western Naval Command. What you get is a deluge of inputs. Since no one wants to take a chance, the Navy records the slightest of stirrings. “It is not all actionable intelligence,” says the source, “No one wants to be blamed should a repeat happen.” Such a data overload, though, is of no practical help.

Another problem is that 14 agencies are involved in the coastal security apparatus. These include the Port Trust Office, the Directorate of Shipping and even a fisherman’s association. They’re all watching. At any given time, as many as 9,000 trawlers ply the waters off Mumbai alone. Of particular concern are large container ships that are not usually searched physically. Even in the US, the next big threat is suspected to be from a container borne operation, since these gigantic metal boxes can carry a huge payload and escape detection. All containers are not inspected individually. India would do well to emulate America’s new inspection protocols.

India is not short of funds to enhance its coastal security, given the Rs 550 crore special budget for this purpose. According to a Home Ministry report, ‘…under the scheme, assistance is been given to the coastal States and Union Territories to set up 73 coastal police stations which will be equipped with 204 boats, 153 jeeps and 312 motor cycles for mobility on coast and in close coastal waters’. Sadly, all this remains mostly on paper. Its implementation has been uneven across the coastal states. With the exception of Gujarat, no state has shown much seriousness of intent. In Goa, for example, very little has been done, though a number of alert transmission radios are being set on all trawlers registered in the state.

Karnataka has at least taken an important step by opening a coast guard station at Karwar, recently. This will give the force a foothold in the area for more aggressive patrolling. However, the station is clearly in need of more boats. It has just two fast speedboats for patrolling duties and responding to emergencies on sea. Karnataka is particularly vulnerable because of large-scale and organised underworld smuggling operations known to exist on the Mangalore coast. Of late, the Intelligence Bureau has been upgrading its espionage and undercover actitivies in this part of Karnataka to assess the threat and trace out any possible nexus between terror groups and smugglers.

India’s eastern coast has had joint naval and coast guard exercises in Orissa, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. “These exercises allow us to sharpen our projection capabilities as well as work on the operational aspects of coordination between the Navy and Coast Guard. We are planning an all India level exercise for coastal security soon,” discloses a senior officer at the Naval headquarters in New Delhi.

The Mumbai attacks exposed India’s lack of vigil. The sad truth is that the country still lacks the wherewithal (and in all likelihood even a strategy) to secure the coastline against an amphibious assault. India is saddled with a continental mindset. The sea is a large void in the scheme of things—seldom remembered. The change must start here. Straightaway.

About The Author

Ninad D. Sheth