Coast Guard to use card readers to verify fishermen

PANAJI: The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) will start verification of fishermen by using card readers to avoid a 26/11-like situation where terrorists entered India via the sea route. It has also intensified patrolling to plunge the gap left due to non-installation of radards. Around 2.5 lakh boats are operating in Indian waters out of which nearly 80,000 boats go to sea everyday, according to ICG.
Speaking to mediapersons on the sidelines of the launch of a Coast Guard offshore patrol vessel at Goa Shipyard Ltd, Vasco, ICG director general, vice-admiral Anurang G Thapliyal said that physical verification of each boat is desirable but actually not possible “because if we go physically on board each of the boats and investigate, checking the papers with the crew would be a daunting task”.
He said that if the identity cards fishermen have and their Aadhaar cards are integrated, then it will help conduct verification through card readers. “Card readers have been given to the Coast Guard and the Navy on a trial basis. We have conducted trials and there have been minor issues. We have raised those points with the makers of the card readers and they are in the process of getting them sorted out,” he added.
One of the issues faced is the time taken in resetting of card readers after the data is loaded on the cards, he said.
Thapliyal said that the government is in the process of giving fishermen low frequency transponders which will be fitted on boats so that it indicates the position of the boats at periodic intervals.
He said that the Coast Guard is trying to regulate fish-landing points so that fishermen come and land their fish at a particular place and thereafter before they leave and after they land, the data is available. “That is how we will come to know how many people are at sea and how many people have come back, because all of them don’t come back the same day,” said Thapliyal.
The Coast Guard DG said that phase one of coastal radar chain network is already in place, we have installed 36 radars onshore and 10 on islands. “We have also received approval for phase two and we are identifying the places to install radars. Our purpose is to stop crime at sea.” He said that in those places where radars have not been installed, the Coast Guard is intensifying patrolling.