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The thirteenth National Oil Spill Disaster Contingency Plan (NOS-DCP) and Preparedness Meeting was held at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi on 15th Apr 09. Vice Admiral Anil Chopra, AVSM, Director General Indian Coast Guard, the Chairman NOSDCP chaired the meeting. A total of 56 delegates from various Govt Departments, Ports and Oil Companies attended the meeting.
The Chairman in his inaugural address welcomed all the delegates to the 13th NOSDCP meeting and reiterated that the purpose and objective of this meeting is to review preparedness and response capabilities, with a view to prepare all agencies to respond to any contingency which may arise out at sea. He stated that this meeting also accords all agencies, an opportunity to monitor the progress made, whilst shouldering their responsibilities as per the provisions of NOSDCP.
The Chairman emphasized, that presently there is a growing concern for global environment deterioration and there exists a genuine fear that if the people do not change their ways right now or the government or its agencies do not take right decisions at the right time, the damage that will be caused to our coastal ecosystem and the sensitive shoreline will render it incapable of sustaining for future use and may cause irreversible damage.
The Chairman stated that the conduct of the recent national level exercise off Mumbai in which many resource agencies participated actively, is an effort coordinated by the Indian Coast Guard to review our preparedness and identity the weak areas. I thank all the resource agencies for their whole hearted participation in the national exercise.
Finally, the Chairman called upon all ports and oil handling agencies committed to the task of maintaining cleaner seas around the Maritime Zones of India keeping in mind our commitment to streamline and practice the procedures of the plan and to enhance synergised preparedness to combat oil spills.
The Secretary, NOS-DCP & Director (Fisheries and Environment), CGHQ briefed the participants about the developments at the National level since last NOS-DCP meeting. The Director (F&E) gave a presentation on overview of NOSDCP.
There were two presentations arranged for the benefit of the members during the meeting. The first presentation was on “Oil Pollution Legislation and Compensation” by Capt Deepak Kapoor, Nautical Surveyor, DG Shipping, Mumbai. The second presentation was on “Oil Spill Risk Assessment and Contingency Planning Process and the Use of Information Technology” by Dr SP Fondekar, Dy Director, NIO, Goa and Dr GS Reddy, MD, Environ Software, Bangalore. A presentation covering debrief on National Level Pollution Response Exercise (NATPOLREX) by Dy. Commandant A Mehrothra, PRT(West)
The important issues which were discussed and deliberated upon during the meeting included the establishing Tier-I facilities, major oil spill exercise and training, role of State Pollution Control Boards, preparation of Local Contingency Plan, contingency plan for LNG, status report on joint inspection of Tier-I OSR facilities, procurement of pollution control vessels for ports, inclusion of new ports under NOSDCP, oil spill response centre at Gulf of Kutch region, revolving trophies for best port and best oil handling agency, Prevention of oil spillage in water, legislations etc.
The Chairman while summing up, thanked all stakeholders for attending this meeting and lauded the efforts put in by the representatives of DG Shipping, NIO and Environ Software for their informative presentations. The Chairman also formally declared the institution of two awards by the Indian Coast Guard for “Best Port for environment protection efforts” and “Best oil handling Facility for environment protection”. |
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Inaugural Address by Chairman NOSDCP |
Discussions |
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For proceeding of 13th NOSDCP Meeting Click here |
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© 2009 Indian Coast Guard, Ministry Of Defence, Government Of India |
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