| Summary/Abstract |
Bangladesh Coast Guard (BCG) came into being in 1995. As the youngest law enforcing agency, it finds some difficulties in making required elbow room among other forces. In course of time, overlaps with other forces cropped up. BCG believes that the overlaps can be eliminated through clear demarcation of responsibilities and areas of jurisdiction. Besides, providing limited magistracy power at sea and making BCG the maritime service provider for other law enforcing agencies would strengthen the law enforcing efforts and save resources. On the other hand, BCG’s decision-making structure has a huge scope of deeper engagement towards obtaining better decisions for BCG. Placement of BCG officers in the ministry and establishing seamless communications with the decision-making structure are some of the measures to overcome this hindrance. Experiences of other coast guards across the globe also suggest similar steps. Towards building a more effective and efficient decision-making structure, ministry-BCG overlapping placements and engaging the decisionmakers more deeply can be suggested along with a few other measures. With these teething problems resolved, one believes that BCG would be in a far better position to become the true ‘Guardian at sea’. Keywords: Guardian at sea, BCG’s AOR, Overlapping Responsibility, Specialized Maritime Skills, Decision-making Structure Reform
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