Hastings: The navy will hold an exercise with the coast guard and coastal police on Bengal's coastline in May to test the operational readiness in the Eastern Command, a home department official said.

The decision for the exercise from Digha to the Sunderbans was taken during a coastal security review meeting at the naval area headquarters in Hastings on Tuesday.

Vice Admiral Karambir Singh, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Eastern Naval Command, and chief secretary Malay De were present at the meeting.

The coastal security network is a three-tier mechanism with the navy, the coastal police of the state and the Indian Coast Guard.

Bengal's coastline is 260km long and home department officials said the idea behind the joint exercise is to identify ways to improve coordination between the agencies.

The joint exercise will identify the snags, if any, in the common communication network (CCN) involving the police, the coast guard and the navy, an official said.

"Ship from the navy and the coast guard will be posted along the coast. Some two-three miles later, there will be another tier comprising vessels from the state marine police and finally there will be fishing boats," Commodore Suprobho K. De, Naval Officer-in-charge (West Bengal), told Metro.

"We will have air surveillance by Dornier aircraft during the joint exercise."

A joint coastal security exercise with various agencies is held twice a year.

The last time such an exercise was held in Bengal was in November 2017.

Bengal's biggest challenge lies with the Sunderbans, where it shares a maritime boundary with Bangladesh. There are 102 islands in the Sunderbans, of which 42 are uninhabited.

Unregulated fishing and piracy remain a cause of concern, an officer of Sunderban coastal police station said.

"Fishing boats less than 20m in length pose a challenge because they aren't fitted with Automatic Identification System unlike the larger ones," the officer said. "We don't have enough interceptor boats for patrolling."

Injured in firing

A man was injured when a group of people fired at him on Monday night in Joynagar, South 24-Parganas, police said. Kahar Ali has been admitted to a hospital in the area with gunshot wounds.

The police suspect Moinuddin Molla and his sons are behind the shooting.

The families of Ali and Molla have been locked in a dispute over land for some time now.