Panaji: Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday released a protocol prepared by the Goa State Pollution Control Board for dealing with oil spills, with action plan for all the concerned agencies including the Coast Guard and the National Institute of Oceanography.

Goa today became the first state in the country to come out with such a protocol.

Parrikar, in the presence of state environment minister Alina Saldanha and state tourism minister Dilip Parulekar, released the protocol here.

The protocol fixes the action that each agency -- police, fisheries, Coast Guard, National Institute of Oceanography, Tourism Dept and others -- will take in the case of accidental oil spills or surfacing of tar balls on the beaches, said Parrikar.

He added that for the first time such a protocol has been developed by any of the state.

The defence minister said agencies like Indian Coast are always on alert to ensure that rogue ships don't wash their tanks mid-water, which can release tar balls on the shore.

"But it is very difficult to catch such ships. Each ship pumps out between five kg to hundred kg of oil in the sea which hits the sea bottom and then washes ashore in the form of tar balls," Parrikar stated.

Goa State Pollution Control Board chairman Jose Manuel Noronha said that NIO would be conducting a study on the tar balls. "NIO is setting up `signature laboratory' to study tar balls so that we will be able to know from which ship it is being discharged," he said.