Fourth edition of coastal defence exercise Sea Vigil 24 concludes

The fourth edition of the pan-India Coastal Defence Exercise Sea Vigil 24 concluded successfully on Thursday. The exercise was conducted in two phases, Phase I extended from November 13 – 19, and Phase II was conducted over a 36-hour period, across all coastal States and union territories of India.

The exercise demonstrated India’s unwavering commitment to strengthening its maritime security and coastal defence mechanisms. Spanning the entirety of India’s 11,098 km coastline and its Exclusive Economic Zone of 2.4 million square kilometres, Sea Vigil 24 witnessed the participation of over 21 agencies across six ministries. These included the Indian Navy, Indian Army, Indian Air Force, Indian Coast Guard, State Marine Police, Customs, BSF, CISF, Port Authorities and Fisheries Department, among others.

The two days of Phase II of the exercise witnessed extensive deployment of more than of 550 surface assets from various maritime security agencies and 60 air sorties with flying time of about 200 hours along the entire coastline of the country.

Coastal Defence and Security Readiness Evaluation (CDSRE) phase of the exercise, conducted for over a period of seven days prior commencement of tactical phase, witnessed a comprehensive audit of over 950 critical coastal locations. The audit included Fishing Landing Centres, Lighthouses, Major and Non-Major ports, Coastal Police Stations, offshore assets, Coastal VAs/ VPs and others. Notably, for the first time, officials from the National Security Council Secretariat participated in the CDSRE activities in Gujarat and West Bengal.

Published - November 22, 2024 10:58 pm IST