Coastal police to get fleet upgrade worth ₹118 crore

State government has approved a proposal to buy 20 new boats, along with revamping old, defunct ones

- Manish Kumar Pathak

MUMBAI: Even as the National Investigation Agency interrogates the recently extradited Tahawwur Hussain Rana, an alleged conspirator of the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, the patrolling boat fleet used to police the city's 114 nautical mile coastline is set for a revamp.

A few months ago, the Maharashtra government approved a ₹118-crore proposal to procure 20 new patrolling boats, for which the bidding process is expected to begin soon, officials said. The state government has also allocated ₹14 crore to repair and revamp 13 non-functional boats provided to the Mumbai coastal police, officials added.

Currently, Mumbai's coastal police have a fleet of 23 patrolling boats, of which 20 were procured after the November 2008 terror attacks, in which 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists from Pakistan reached Mumbai by sea. They then targeted multiple locations in the city, killing 166 people and injuring 238 others. The deadly attacks exposed several security gaps, especially along Mumbai's coastline.