Satish B. Agnihotri

Of late, damaged ships have suddenly washed up on the Mumbai coast, raising security fears, especially after the July terrorist attack. Dr Satish B. Agnihotri, director-general of shipping, tells Ateeq Shaikh that MT Pavit going undetected for four days was indeed a lapse. He also says that the installation of coastal surveillance radar along India’s coastline — visualised after the 26/11 attack on Mumbai — is in its initial phase.

Lately several ships have run aground on the Mumbai coast. What is happening?
This issue comes up if you’re looking at the last three to four months. But if you look at it year-wise, the figures for 2009, 2010 and 2011 are lower than the previous three years. In the recent cases, the ships simply happened to have met with accidents in circumstances that have attracted more visibility.

Weren’t Merchant Vessel (MV) Wisdom and Merchant Tanker (MT) Pavit significant security hazards? There also appeared the possibility of the Bandra-Worli Sea Link being damaged.
In fact, neither was a security hazard. In MV Wisdom’s case, it was just that its towing rope had snapped and it drifted to Juhu beach. Even if it had been moving towards the sea link, the damage wouldn’t have been significant. The ship was neither on a head-on collision course nor moving at high speed. It was just drifting. Incidentally, the extent of damage caused by mishaps in water is far less than on land.

What measures are being taken to secure India’s 7,500-kilometre-long coast from such incidents?
After last year’s collision between MSC Chitra and MV Khalijia III, we realised the need for Emergency Towing Vessels (ETVs) and put forward a proposal which was approved. ETVs came very handy when the MV Wisdom ran aground. In case of MT Pavit, had we known about it even by late Saturday evening, it would have been treated as an emergency towing operation, but it became a salvage operation. We have sought three ETVs next year. Depending on the results, and going by our own projections, we may need five ETVs at different places along the coast, i.e. the eastern, southern and western coasts, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. We will have to work out the five locations for berthing these ETVs. But for now, we need three.

MT Pavit went undetected by our coastal surveillance systems for over 100 hours, that is four days. Was this a lapse in maritime surveillance?
Yes, the vessel going undetected for such a long period was a lapse, unfortunately. The weather was inclement on Friday and Saturday, so it was extremely difficult to track ships, but prior to that the non detection — even by private ships — is intriguing.
To prevent this from happening, the best way is to superimpose all data available from radar sweeps on the data provided by a system called Long Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT). LRIT contains details of vessels that report their positions, while the radar gives the positions of all vessels. So, if one subtracts the LRIT data from the radar data, one can easily find ships that are present but not reporting their positions. Such ships instantly become prima facie suspect, and security agencies look out for them.

Would such data be shared with the Coast Guard? Where would the operation centre be located, and with which agency?
LRIT information is currently being shared with the Indian Navy on a real time basis. However, it won’t be at full utility until radar data is available to be superimposed on the LRIT data.

There were plans to install coastal surveillance radars to cover the entire Indian coastline. What is the status of this project? Media reports suggest that the radars are in place on the Gujarat coast. What about Mumbai?
The Indian Navy is the agency monitoring that project. It is still in its initial phase.

These radars can monitor ships up to 30 nautical miles (nm). But India’s Exclusive Economic Zone is spread over 200 nm. Surely, this will pose a problem?
India’s territorial waters extend up to 12 nm, while 200 nm is the zone within which India can carry out economic activities. In emergencies, even if ships are pinpointed at 10 nm from the coast, it gives us enough time to take preventive action. Therefore, 30 nm is sufficient to monitor ship movement.

Why isn’t the shipping administration itself salvaging or towing away ships that have sunk or run aground on our coasts, and then claim the expense from the owners, instead of asking the owners to carry out the operations?
If you look at Section 133 of the Criminal Procedure Code, you will see that the owners have to be mandatorily given a chance. You see, when you carry out the operation yourself, unless it is an emergency and can be established as such, the owners can very well argue that they could have done the job themselves in a far more effective and cost-efficient manner. It is prudent to give the owners a chance. We always come in as a last resort.
In the case of MV Wisdom too, once the owners came forward, we persuaded and pressurised them, as we normally do, to negotiate with the salvors. Suggestions have been made that we, as an administration, should also go in for this kind of salvage operations and then levy a steep fee on the owners. But for that to happen, the law needs to be amended first.