Chennai: We'll focus on marine litter, says Ministry of Earth Sciences secretary
Chennai: After understanding the gravity of the marine litter problem, India is likely to formulate a new marine litter policy to control dumping the plastic wastes in the open sea, according to M.Rajeevan, union secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
Speaking to reporters after inaugurating National Centre for Coastal Research in Chennai on Friday, M. Rajeevan said, “marine litter has become a very big problem. We are going to work with several countries including UK and US to understand the gravity of the situation, to assess the marine litter problem and also to help the government to make the policies for regulating it.”
“We have regulations for dumping wastes inland, but we don’t have any regulations for the open sea. Marine litter has become the focus for many countries as scientists are saying that the marine plastic wastes will outnumber the fishes in the ocean in few years,” he said. The ministry at present is formulating a project on marine litter.
He further said the ministry will set up six marine coastal observatories - three in the east coast and three in the west coast to observe the marine pollution and predict the water quality.
“National Centre for Coastal Research and INCOIS will work on marine coastal observatories. Out of six observatories, two observatories will come by December 2018,” he added.
INCOIS director Satheesh C.Shenoi said, “West Bengal, Visakhapatnam and Chennai will have observatories on the east coast and Cochin, Mumbai and Gujarat will host observatories on the west coast. The exact locations for the observatories are yet to be finalised,” he said.
The observatories will have buoys with high-quality sensors to assess various parameters. “These observatories will help the forecasting of water quality in advance,” he said.
Integrated Coastal and Marine Area Management Project Directorate (ICMAM PD) is being upgraded as National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR). The new centre will focus on coastal research including the measuring the water quality and eco-system modelling. M.V. Ramana Murthy, director of National Centre for Coastal Research, and other senior scientists were also present at the event.
