GUARDING THE RIM

India's post-26/11 coastal security system boasts radars, patrol boats and new laws - yet beneath the optics lie old weaknesses. Training gaps, stranded infrastructure, jurisdictional clutter and climate stress continue to erode readiness.VISHAL DUGGAL reports

- VISHAL DUGGAL

India's 7,516.6-kilometre coastline is both its gateway and its weak flank. It carries nearly all external trade, sustains coastal livelihoods and anchors India’s maritime ambitions — yet it also remains a porous border that can be breached by stealth, neglect or nature. Since the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, successive governments have declared coastal security a national priority. Sixteen years later, the system is certainly stronger, but also visibly uneven — efficient in parts, ad hoc in others, and increasingly strained by manpower shortages, environmental shifts and bureaucratic inertia.

A Geography That Resists Control

For decades, the coastline was treated as a fixed line — neatly printed in manuals and budget notes. The reality is less comforting. With better mapping, it is now evident that the coast is an ever-changing labyrinth of creeks, sandbars and mangroves, whose contours move with tides, erosion and silt. Regions such as the Sundarbans or Sir Creek make the task of surveillance almost impossible to mechanise.

Large naval craft cannot enter these shallows, and even medium patrol boats are often grounded by siltation. Radar coverage flickers, visibility collapses at night, and small fishing craft blend into the traffic of thousands. A single misclassified vessel can become a security gap hundreds of kilometres wide. The coast’s beauty is its camouflage — and that is not a comforting fact for those meant to guard it.

Personnel: Stretched, Under-trained and Uneven

After 2008, new marine police stations mushroomed across coastal states. Many still exist only on paper or operate with skeletal staff. Recruits are often drawn from regular police cadres with little maritime experience; training cycles are short, and refresher programmes are rare. The result is a force thin in skill.