File picture of a coast guard ship

Paradip, Sept. 20: An improvised sea vessel with in built laboratory facilities will be pressed into service here from next month to monitor and carry out research on the ecology along the Paradip-Dhamra coast.

A bidding process has already been taken for acquisition of the vessel.

The Rs 2.5-crore vessel will be deployed on a stretch of 12 nautical miles.

A centre for management of the coastal eco-system is also expected to come up at New Sandhakuda on the outskirts of Paradip. Both the vessel and the coastal eco-system management centre are expected to start operation from October.

“The monitoring project is a part of the World Bank-funded Integrated Coastal Zone Management Programme. Researchers of the Odisha State Pollution Control Board will implement the project. The improvised vessel will monitor offshore and inshore environmental coastal parameters between Paradip and Dhamra,” said nodal officer of the project Anupam Behera.

However, the Odisha State Pollution Control Board, which deals with air, water and environmental pollution, is not properly equipped with the mechanism to monitor seawater.

Once the project is commissioned, it would add to the pollution watchdog’s capacity building in monitoring and carrying scientific study of the state’s coastal eco system.

The wetland sites of the Bhitarkanika national park will also come under the purview of the coastal eco-system management centre.

The centre will also have an online weather warning system, said an official.

The on-board experimentation will involve, among other things, collection of sea surface data such as temperature, salinity, wave height and wave direction and near-surface meteorological conditions such as air temperature, wind speed, wind direction, dew point temperature and barometric pressure.

The vessel will have to follow the stability requirements of the Indian Merchant Shipping Act, 1958, with provisions of light, sound, signal and fire-fighting appliances.

It will have a carrying capacity of eight persons, including crew.