Bhubaneswar: The Coast Guard is in the process of acquiring three specialised vessels to combat pollution in the sea, according to Commodore R S Vasan, commander, Coast Guard Region (East).

"At the moment we have no dedicated pollution control vessel and we are making do with other vessels when the need arises," Vasan told reporters on December 8.

''We are in the process of acquiring three of them and the price and technical negotiations are on,'' he said, adding each vessel would cost about Rs 300 crore.

The Coast Guard had chalked out a prospective development plan for 15 years, for which Rs 6,000 crore to Rs 7,000 crore would be required, Vasan said.

The government's nodal agency for search and rescue and pollution control, the Coast Guard had three wings – Eastern coast, Western coast and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, he said while informing that his jurisdiction covered over 2,000 km of coastline from the Sundarbans up to Kanyakumari in the South.

With the peace process making headway in Sri Lanka, the tension in the Palk Strait had come down considerably, he told a questioner.

PTI