Odishatv Bureau

Bhubaneswar/Mumbai: Odisha has sought Central government’s intervention in making the 18 marine police stations in the state fully operational.

Home secretary Asit Tripathy, who attended a review meeting on coastal security chaired by Home minister Rajnath Singh today, emphasised that more steps need to be taken to make these police stations operational.

“We raised the demand for equipment required to make the 18 police stations operational. We demanded interceptor boats and specially designed boats to facilitate surveillance in mangroves, creeks etc. We also discussed the need for trained police personnel,” said Tripathy after the meeting.

The Home secretary informed that all boats plying through the coast will be put under surveillance from now on. Moreover, fishing boats will be coloured differently to make identification easier and biometric cards will be issued to fishermen for their easy identification. A transponder will be installed in each and every boat to facilitate surveillance.

Speaking on the occasion, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said maritime terrorism is a big threat with huge economic implications and the government is carrying out a security audit of all major and non-major ports to identify vulnerable points in coastal security.

"The vulnerability of our coasts was exposed in 1993 when explosives were smuggled to Raigad and then in 2008 when terrorists attacked Mumbai," the HMO tweeted Rajnath as saying at the meeting.

"We need to make our coastal security foolproof and impregnable," he said in another tweet.

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