Discuss the role of coastal communities and State governments in strengthening India's maritime security. What institutional gaps persist?

The 26/11 attackers came by sea, which showed that India's maritime security depends on its innermost layer as much as on the Navy. The Navy is coordinating Sea Vigil-26 (11–19 November 2026), and it formally lists coastal States and fishing communities as stakeholders [1]. Both have grown in importance, but gaps in capacity and coordination remain.

Role of coastal communities

• They act as the "eyes and ears" of coastal surveillance. Fishers at sea report unfamiliar boats and people. The Ministry of Fisheries is one of the exercise's facilitating ministries [1].
• They make friend-or-foe identification possible. Transponders on fishing boats let agencies tell a fishing boat from a hostile one. A committee chaired by the Cabinet Secretary (NCSMCS) recommended making them compulsory [2].

Role of State governments

• Police is a State subject (List II). States run the coastal police stations (73 under Phase I and 131 under Phase II of the Coastal Security Scheme). The Centre funds the boats and buildings [3].
• State marine police patrol the shallow waters near the shore. They also join national drills, which makes coastal security a test of cooperative federalism.

Institutional gaps that persist

• Assets lie idle. In Gujarat, boat repairs took 4–13 months because the repair yard was far away [4]. In Karnataka, 4 of 9 coastal police stations had no patrol boat, and none had its own jetty [5]. In Andaman & Nicobar, only 1 of 10 planned Marine Operational Centres had been set up [6].
• Small boats are a blind spot. There was no formal system to track boats under 20 m, which is most of the fishing fleet [2]. The transponder roll-out was still "under active implementation" in 2023-24 [7].
• Command is split. The Navy leads the exercise, the Coast Guard guards territorial waters, and State police patrol near the shore. An apex body, the Multi-Agency Maritime Security Group under the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), came only in 2021 [8].
• Exercises are not daily readiness. Sea Vigil is announced in advance. It reports how many sites were checked, but not who must fix the gaps found [1].

Coastal communities and States have moved from bystanders to active partners. The next step is to make transponders compulsory by law, fund maintenance and jetties and not just new boats, and have the NSCS assign each Sea Vigil finding to a named agency with a deadline. This would complete the integrated coastal security architecture planned after 26/11.