|
Current
Affairs
|
News  |
|
Little fuel for patrol boats THANE: If there is anything the events of Wednesday have showed us, it is that the state has not learnt from its mistakes in the past. In 2008, a clutch of terrorists came to Mumbai from the sea and held it hostage for four days. Three years later, the coastal security ring around the city continues to be porous for want of infrastructure and trained personnel. The seven high-speed craft the government procured in the wake of 26/11 to protect the coastline along Thane district are mostly lying unused. There is not enough fuel to run them nor enough trained personnel to operate them. Each of the vessels, which race at 35 nautical miles an hour, consumes about 100 litres of petrol per hour. But the sanctioned quota of petrol for all boats together is just 600 litres a week. We have to ration the petrol, so we operate just one boat for an hour a day. For the remaining 23 hours, the entire coastline is left unpatrolled, said a police official. Even officials admit that this lapse leaves the 112-km seacoast stretching from Uttan at Bhayander to Gholvad in Dahanu taluka vulnerable to hostile intruders. The paucity of fuel, however, is not the only failure. Of the seven speedboats procured from Goa Shipyard in 2009, one has been rendered defunct due to mechanical problems while the rest are anchored at a privately-owned spot at Versova along the Mumbai-Ahmedabad road. Back |
|
Created
by SaasVaap Techies pvt ltd