Coast Guards hotline plan hangs fire

Sources said, the Navy suggested that the level of contact should be calibrated and at a much lower level. As an alternative, it also suggested that the operations room of the two Coast Guards stay in touch and the level of contact raised later.

It is learnt that the issue of protocol was also raised when the proposal was first mooted. It had been pointed out that while the director general of the Indian Coast Guard was a Vice-Admiral, his Pakistani counterpart was much junior.

According to sources, the file has been sent to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) for a final decision. If the proposal is cleared, then the hotline between the two Coast Guards could be set up as early as June. This is likely to be followed by high-level delegation talks between the two Coast Guards later this year.

The decision to establish the hotline was aimed at enabling the Indian and Pakistani Coast Guards to exchange information on fishermen straying into each other’s international waters. This, said sources, would help in the early repatriation of fishermen jailed by the respective countries and help create better coordination for conducting search and rescue missions in international waters.