Why in news?

The phase II project of the coastal surveillance system developed by the public-sector undertaking Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) will be operational along India’s coastline by 2023 with the installation of 38 radar stations and four mobile stations.

Highlights

• The Coast Guard project aims to cover the entire Indian coastline in two phases.
• “Under phase 1 of the project, BEL had established 46 stations, of which 10 are on islands that include Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep and 36 are on the mainland.
• Phase II will cover the gaps and strengthen the system with 38 more radar stations. Under phase II, four mobile stations will be there as well. After the completion of phase II, the coastline of 7,516.6 km will be completely ‘leak-proof’.
• Data fusion was an important aspect of the radar stations. “The data will be processed and sent to the control centres for surveillance operations. The coastal surveillance system involves correlation of multiple radars, sonars, automatic identification system, and closed-circuit cameras. The major subsystems of the radar station will have meteorological sensors, which will give weather updates, electro-optic sensors, radar adapter etc,”

Importance of the project

• The surveillance system would prevent 26/11-type attacks.
• It identifies and tracks boats approaching the coastline.
• It would provide total scalable surveillance solutions for vessels, ports, waterway and offshore facilities.
• The system would detect and identify vessels entering unauthorised buffer zones around offshore oil and gas platforms
• Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Seychelles have also been integrated into the coastal surveillance network.

In charge of the project

• The installation, commissioning and life-cycle support of the radar stations will be undertaken by BEL. In November 2020, the defence PSU announced that Denmark-based Terma would provide additional technology for the project.