The government has ordered closure of an ambitious project to set up the country's first academy to train police forces in coastal security, owing to what is understood to be financial constraints, official sources said Wednesday.
The National Academy of Coastal Policing (NACP) was sanctioned by the Union Home Ministry only last year and was to be run by the Border Security Force (BSF) in Gujarat.
The ministry, as per sources and documents accessed by PTI, recently asked the BSF, which guards the Pakistan and Bangladesh borders, to "discontinue" six other such training academies, being run on ad hoc arrangements, in different parts of the country.
These institutions were meant to train officers and jawans in various combat skills and theatres.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) also rejected a fresh BSF proposal to create its maiden full-fledged counterinsurgency and anti-terrorism (CIAT) school in the Left Wing Extremism affected state of Chhattisgarh.
It disallowed the BSF proposal to have 275 personnel posted in this first-of-its kind school for honing anti-Naxal operations skills, that would have incurred a financial burden of Rs 138.94 crore, they said.
However, the most shocking decision has been to discontinue operations at the National Academy of Coastal Policing (NACP) that was sanctioned to be run in the interim from a campus of Gujarat's Fisheries Research Centre located in coastal Okha in the newly created Devbhoomi Dwarka district.
The academy was conceptualised last year as the country's first such school to train police and paramilitary forces personnel in various aspects of sensitive and vulnerable coastal security. The ambitious project had come nearly a decade after threats to the Indian coast were magnified during the 26/11 terror attacks in 2008.
Apart from the Navy and the Coast Guard, the costal police of various states, the BSF (in Sir Creek area of Gujarat) and the CISF have role in this security domain.
Sources in the security establishment said the BSF was running the academy on an "ad hoc' basis pending final administrative and financial sanction and the home ministry has now ordered against its continuation in the current form owing to "financial constraints".
"This is surprising as the academy was thought about and created after a lot of deliberations and was being seen as a beacon of sorts to train police and Central Armed Police Forces personnel in all aspects of coastal security," a senior official privy to the development said.
He said the BSF is understood to have "taken up" the issue with the ministry.
PTI had first reported last year about the blueprint of the academy which said it will be the first-of-its-kind institution of the country that will be run by a multi-agency team of paramilitary and defence forces and sharpen the response and skills of the CAPFs and the marine forces of multiple states which have sea lines.
The Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) was entrusted to pilot the establishment and running of the academy and the BSF, that guards the Indian frontier in Gujarat with Pakistan, the Navy and the Coast Guard were supposed to form the core to run the academy.
The Navy and the Coast Guard, as per last year's home ministry order, were tasked to help design "the training curriculum, providing skilled trainers and ensuring access to jetties and boats" for the trainees of the academy.
The ministry had also directed the Gujarat government to provide two interceptor boats to the academy that are stationed by it at Okha for patrolling of the sea by the marine unit of the state police.
The academy was supposed to train the personnel in maritime laws, seamanship, boat work, navigation, weapons handling, usage of sea guidance and surveillance gadgets and survival skills for long-haul operations on the sea or during distress times when they may get stranded in these waters running up to 12 nautical miles from the shore.
It was directed that the academy will function for three years from the campus of the Gujarat fisheries department and subsequently a new campus will be raised in the same district.
The BSF was running the academy on an "ad hoc" basis that has now been ordered to shut down, sources said.
India has a vast coastline of 7,516 kms touching 13 states and Union Territories (UTs). It also has around 1,197 islands.
The six other BSF training institutes, running on an 'ad hoc' basis, that have been ordered to shut as part of the same order are: the CIAT school at Karahalli in Bengaluru, recruit training centre (RTC) at Bhondsi in Harayana, a similar RTC and law institute running at its campus in Chhawla in Delhi, an artillery training school at Faridkot in Punjab and the BSF Institute of Adventure and Advance Training (BIAAT) based in Dehradun.
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