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Bhubaneswar: Odisha government today urged the Centre to provide necessary funds to meet expenditures required for infrastructure development for marine police operations which are the backbone of coastal security.
State Home Secretary Asit Tripathy during a video-conference with the Union Cabinet Secretary today urged the Centre to provide necessary recurring expenditure required in setting up, development and maintenance of all the 18 marine police stations in the state.
“The maintenance costs of the marine police stations are quite high. We are also getting more interceptor boats and there is also a need to construct more jetties as well. So we have asked the Centre to share the recurring expenditure needed for the purpose,” Tripathy said.
DGP RP Sharma who also a part of the meeting said, “Central government should provide adequate assistance to the state government to ensure that marine police stations should operate optimally.”
At present, there are only 18 marine police stations guarding the 480 km-long coastline all along the state. Out of the total, five are operational and the rest are yet to be made fully functional.
According to sources, there are only 15 interceptor boats catering to the need of the 18 police stations out of which only 13 are functional. Due to absence of required number of police personnel, patrolling in these sensitive points is being affected, informed sources.
Moreover, the boat operators are presently being trained under the Coast Guard and the Navy but due to lack of any dedicated training centre security personnel and experts have questioned their abilities. Almost all the marine police personnel have to depend on the Chilika Naval training centre for all their training.
Defence personnel have also emphasised on the importance of a separate training centre dedicated only for the marine police personnel.
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