By IANS
Port Blair : The Indian Coast Guard Thursday began a two-day maritime multi-agency search and rescue (SAR) exercise in the Andaman Sea to test its operational plans for responding to an “emergency” involving a passenger ship.
During the drill, all the rescue agencies that are part of the Coast Guard-led National Maritime SAR Coordinating Authority (NMSARCA) “will respond to the hypothetical emergency scenario”, a defence ministry release said of SAREX-07 as the exercise has been named.
NMSARCA members from all over the country “will coordinate to effectively respond while providing their assets for evacuating all the passengers to safety”, the release added.
The exercise “will help in fine-tuning the laid down procedures to emergency response by personnel to manage and respond” to an emergency at sea, it said.
It will also test the preparedness of the national and local authorities and other emergency services for dealing with a SAR operation under the guidelines mandated by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
“The contingency plans of the participating authorities will be exercised to test the alerting, mobilisation and management of resources for search and rescue and the welfare of survivors,” the release said.
The Andaman and Nicobar administration will also be able to test its contingency plans to meet such an eventuality, especially in view of the ever-increasing passenger liner traffic plying between the Indian mainland and the islands.
Under NMSARCA, the area under the Indian SAR Region is divided into three sectors with Maritime Rescue Coordination Centres (MRCCs) located at Mumbai, Chennai and Port Blair.
In addition, 10 Maritime Rescue Sub-centres (MRSCs) function at Porbandar, Mumbai, Goa, New Mangalore and Kochi in the west, at Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Haldia in the east, and at Digilpur and Campbell Bay in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.