New Delhi, Nov. 21: India is seeking an overarching pact with 24 countries around it to exchange data on tracking and identifying all mercantile vessels.
National security advisor Ajit Doval is personally leading the consultations. The agreement will be executed by New Delhi through a national maritime domain awareness (NMDA) project that is now being studied by the cabinet committee on security.
The NMDA project and the multi-country agreement will be the next step on coastal security after India’s National Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (NC3I) finally takes off on Sunday, nearly six years since 26/11 when terrorists came by sea to wreak havoc in Mumbai.
The NC3I’s Information Management and Analysis Centre (Imac) will be housed in a building in Gurgaon after the establishment of a network that has so far cost Rs 453 crore. The Imac will be headed by the navy, the assistant chief of naval staff (communications, space and network centric operations), Rear Admiral K.K. Pandey, said here today.
The NC3I was initially supposed to be up and ready by 2012. It has involved linking 51 radar stations (20 of the Indian Navy and 31 of the Coast Guard) with the hub in Gurgaon.
“The NC3I will be at the heart of the NMDA (project) and will subsequently be called nodal centre for the MDA. It will amalgamate all information,” said the rear admiral. The Imac will be opened on Sunday by defence minister Manohar Parrikar with Doval.
The radar stations and satellites that have been networked with software installed by a defence public sector unit can track up to 37,000 vessels in Indian waters every day. But a system for identifications is yet to be in place. That is where the “whiteshipping” (mercantile traffic) data exchange programme will be required. In due course, the NC31 may also be linked to a “network for spectrum” — a dedicated defence data network — programme that is in the works.
Defence sources said the Modi government had taken stock of the pending work on coastal security. Since 26/11, the responsibility has been co-ordinated mostly from by the national committee on strengthening maritime and coastal security (NCSMCS) under the chairmanship of the cabinet secretary.
