The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : `Troop strength in south India adequate'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 13, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

`Troop strength in south India adequate'

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, JAN. 12. The General Officer Commanding, Andhra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala Area, Maj. Gen. Paramjit Singh, today said the troop strength in south India was "adequate" to meet any kind of challenge, including natural disasters.

Asked if the absence of both the Territorial Army battalions in Tamil Nadu (in Tiruchi and Coimbatore) and the fact that the lone Army unit (at Pallavaram here) was away, impeded the Army's response to the tsunami, he said that this was not the case.

There was no case for placing more units in the South. "Units are placed in peace time locations as a temporary measure... should tomorrow mobilisation be ordered for a operational reason then where will the units move from? After all the main job of the Army is [to neutralise] external aggression... all these locations of the units are decided taking operational parameters into consideration. They don't take into account that an earthquake may occur once in forty years or a tsunami may occur once in hundred years," he said.

Even without the three outfits here, the Army had moved at its usual speed that a situation of this nature demanded. "On a request by the Chief Engineer Kalpakkam Atomic Power Plant and the Deputy Collector, Kancheepuam at 1030 hrs on December 26, a column from 7 JAK RIF was immediately rushed to the KAPP. The Army column reached KAPP at 1300 hours and took control of the situation," he said.

Deployment

About the deployment in other places, he said on the basis of a request from the Chief Secretary at 4 p.m. on December 26, a column of Army was moved from the Madras Engineering Group, Bangalore. It reached Nagapattinam on December 27 at 1 p.m.

Maj. Gen. Singh gave the timings of request by the civil administration and the time taken by the Army to be deployed in the areas to drive home the point that south India had sufficient troops and that there was no delay in deploying troops once a request was made.

"The Army will continue to stay till such time that the civil administration wants us to," he said, addressing the press on Operation Sea Waves, the Army's response to the disaster caused by the tsunami. "We are working in total coordination with the State Government and NGOs," he added. The Army had about 2,000 personnel in the field at the peak of the relief operations.

"We have reduced our strength [now]. One column each has gone back from Nagapattinam and Cuddalore. And the column from Kancheepuram has been derequisitioned. They have gone back. From the original strength about 30 to 40 per cent has been reduced," said the General Officer Commanding.

The Army had taken up repairing outboard motors of boats in Kanyakumari following a request from the district administration. In Cuddalore too, an Army team of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers were working overtime to repair the motors. In Nagapattinam, the Army had constructed two causeways, set up a desalination plant and had repaired outboard motors.

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