Clean Sea-2017

•  The Regional Level Marine Oil Pollution Response Exercise titled ‘Clean Sea – 2017’, was recently conducted at sea off Port Blair.
• The objective of the exercise was to ascertain preparedness of the Indian Coast Guard, resource agencies and other stakeholders in responding to a major oil spill in line with the provisions of NOS-DCP (National Oil Spill Disaster Contingency Plan).

About National Oil Spill Disaster Contingency Plan:

• India promulgated National oil spill Disaster contingency plan (NOS-DCP) in the year 1996. Coast guard was designated as central coordination authority.

The objectives of the plan are:

• To develop appropriate and effective systems for the detection and reporting of spillage of oil.
• To ensure prompt response to prevent, control, and combat oil pollution.
• To ensure that adequate protection is provided to the public health and welfare, and the marine environment.
• To ensure that appropriate response techniques are employed to prevent, control, and combat oil pollution, and dispose off recovered material in an environmentally accepted manner.
• To ensure that complete and accurate records are maintained of all expenditure to facilitate cost of recovery.

Responsibilities:

• Port authorities responsible for action within port limit.
• Oil industries in and around their area of operations.
• Costal state frontier tidal zones, beaches and up to death beyond which CG ships and craft cannot operate.
• Coast guard responsibilities lies beyond port limits.
• DGICG has overall responsibility for appropriate response to oil spill incidents.

By: Vishal