The Hindu : Shipyard modernisation sluggish: naval chief

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 24, 2002

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Shipyard modernisation sluggish: naval chief
By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 23. The Chief of Naval Staff, Madhavendra Singh, today expressed reservations over the pace of modernising naval shipyards and said this had affected indigenisation.

As a result, plans to commission a new air defence ship (small carrier) might not be realised for at least a decade. This would upset India's plans of possessing three air defence ships in the next five years. While one could be the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, the Navy wants to build the other two `smaller' carriers (which would, however, be larger than the present carrier INS Viraat) in the country.

Speaking at the 12th Commodore Garg memorial lecture here, he said shipyard modernisation was essential to indigenise the Navy at ``full steam'' and enable India occupy a prominent place in the seas of the region. Despite the constraints of modernisation which could impact the Navy's future preparedness, Admiral Singh was convinced that the Navy would fulfil the commitments expected by India's partners in the coalition against terrorism.

The Indian Navy was confident of participating in the multi-national effort in guarding the oil-rich sea-lanes passing through the piracy and terrorism-prone Malacca Straits near the Anadamn & Nicobar Islands. ``We are waiting for the Government's go ahead,'' he observed, exuding confidence about the Navy meeting the expectations of the international community.

Despite sluggish modernisation, Admiral Singh commended the navy's designers for putting India on the warship building map. Though modern war ship construction began in India only in the sixties, navy's designers were successful in `de novo' designing of warships such as the Godavari class missile frigates and Khukri class of missile corvettes.

However, the Naval chief underlined the gravity of challenges ahead by calling for induction of latest technology to reduce the ship-building time and bring about cost-effectiveness. ``The Indian Navy's ships should be sleek and deadlier and must withstand damage besides being packed with maximum offensive capability. But we should never ape the west,'' he cautioned.

Although the Navy has designed and built several classes of ships including support ships like tankers, off-shore patrol vessels and seaward defence boats, the building of an ADS is a much more daunting task. The biggest surface combatant built by Indian Navy has a full load displacement of 6,700 tonnes whereas the ADS would have five times higher displacement.

Delivering the main lecture `new product development', Capt. (retd.) N.S. Mohan Ram pointed out that modernisation by the Navy was much better than its two sister services mainly because of better cohesiveness between its designers and operations personnel. While the air force's advanced light combat aircraft (LCA) and the Army's main battlefield tank projects were taken up around the same time as INS Godavari (which also suffered delays), the results were radically different.

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