Indian Coast Guard to receive 2 advanced pollution control vessels from Goa Shipyard

The Defence Ministry entered into an agreement with Goa Shipyard Ltd (GSL) for setting up two Pollution Control Vessels, on Tuesday. Expected to be built at a cost of ₹583 crores, the vessels will be deployed for usage by the Indian Coast Guard. The new vehicles are being designed to keep the pollution levels in check and both will cater to the needs being observed in Eastern and the ecologically sensitive Andaman and Nicobar regions.

A move to augment ICG's capabilities to deal with oil spill disasters

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It has been informed that these special purpose vehicles have been natively designed and produced by GSL. Expounding upon this, the Defence Ministry stated, "The acquisition is under 'Buy Indian - Indigenously Designed Developed & Manufactured (Buy Indian-IDDM)', the highest priority category for defence capital procurements."

Besides strengthening the Pollution Response (PR) infrastructure and functioning, the new development will also increase the potential of the Indian Coast Guard. With the deployment of the two vessels, ICG would be better equipped to deal with oil spill disasters. As per the stated schedule, two vessels will be delivered by November 2024 and May 2025, respectively.

Currently, ICG possesses three pollution mitigation ships that help the operations at Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Porbandar. They assist in pollution tracking, oil spill checks, response operations in the Indian exclusive economic zone and the neighbouring islands.

Amongst the highlights, the vessels shall have the facility of operating helicopter onboard. Additionally, there will also have umpteen state-of-the-art attributes with the latest PR equipment of niche technology for stopping, recovering and dispersing the marine oil spills.

Resonating with the idea of 'Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan'

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It is noteworthy that this project lies under the 'Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan' (self-reliant India) campaign with the domestic production of modern technology. While this would definitely usher in a large number of employment opportunities, the ministry also informed that 200 sectors of MSME involved in the process will also be benefitted.

- With inputs from IANS