PARADIP: Jagatsinghpur district has three marine police stations (PSs) - Paradip Marine PS, Jatadhari Marine PS and Bandar Marine PS - for securing the district’s vast coast. These facilities, however, fail to serve any purpose in the absence of security personnel and inadequate infrastructure.
Paradip Marine PS is the State’s first marine PS which opened on March 1, 2009. Five years later, Jatadhari Marine PS and Bandar Marine PS were opened in Erasama and Balikuda respectively.
Today, all the three marine police stations are ill-equipped. While Paradip Marine PS has three seaworthy power boats, each having 12-tonne capacity, for sea patrolling, two of them are gathering dust in the local fishing harbour. Reason: The police station has no technical employees to operate these power boats that are equipped with modern gadgets like night vision binoculars, radars, eco-sounders, GPS and walkie-talkies.
Currently, sea patrolling is being done by Navy personnel with one power boat, which develops snags frequently due to lack of maintenance.
No power boats have been supplied to Jatadhari Marine and Bandar Marine PS. Sources said the police personnel in these police stations are managing the show with outdated SLR .303 rifles and AK-47 and AK- 56 guns.
In Paradip Marine PS, there are no ASIs and SIs against the sanctioned six posts each. Of the sanctioned 48 constable and 16 havildar posts, there are eight constables and two havildars respectively. Jatadhari Marine PS has no building of its own and has just one inspector, one ASI, four constables and two havildars. Bandar police station has no inspector and functions with two ASIs, four constables and two havildars.
SP Prakash R said the higher authorities in the Home department have been apprised of the situation.