Smaller vessels need to be covered under SOLAs, says former NSA chief

Chennai:
Vessels less than 300 tonnes are not covered by International Convention for the Safety of Life in The Sea (SOLAS) and these are the vessels that often need most assistance, according to Chhatisgarh governor and former deputy national security advisor and defence secretary Shekhar Dutt.
 
Delivering the inaugural address of 3^rd International Search and Rescue Conference organised by Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dutt said that many small boats including fishing vessels and pleasure yachts come in this category.
 
“The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) included passenger ships regardless of size under the ambit of regulations but left out hundreds of thousands of vessels whose crew may be equally vulnerabl. In the Indian context small boat tracking is critical from the security perspectiveas well as beside humanitarian concerns,” said Dutt.
 
“A win-win situation can be evolved. Tracking small boats provides security agencies with a means of improving their domain awareness and also simultaneously provides the fishing community an incentive to participate in the initiative,” he said.
 
“Once they know they are being tracked they also become aware that they can be rescues when in distress,” he said.
 
He said that cooperation in maritime search and rescue (SAR) and assistance in setting up Maritime Rescue Coordination Centres (MRCCs) were important components of the trilateral cooperation in Maritime Security Agreement recently concluded by national security agencies (NSAs) of India, Sri Lanka and Maldives and it will address the issues of training as well as  capacity enhancement of the region