Navy adopting new techniques in construction of warships

Visakhapatnam: While adopting new techniques in construction of many warships for induction into the Eastern fleet Indian Navy’s Eastern Naval Command has also enhanced deployment of ships, submarines and aircraft maximising its time at sea through mission based deployment and keep itself combat ready, said Eastern Naval Command (ENC) Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Vice-Admiral Karambir Singh onboard INS Sahyadri here on Monday.

Addressing the media here on the eve of the Navy Day, Vice-Admiral Karambir Singh said, “We are positioning our ships at the choke points of the Indian Ocean and using space based automatic identification stations to keep track of the developments that is not in our interest.”

To ensure that enough ships or submarines are at our disposal, Indian Navy is also ensuring fast pacing of indigenous ship building incorporating modern technologies as part of its capability building programme.

Modular construction, using software for designing, integrated and innovative ways are being used to cut down time of building ships at the private and public shipyards under Make In India initiative, the ENC chief added.

He asserted that at least four among the 27 ships and submarines presently on order and being constructed in the Indian public and private shipyards would be ready by next year.

Adding more merits to the smart city Vizag, the First Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC-1), post induction, will be based with the Eastern Naval Command and will be placed in the Port City.

INS Vikramaditya has already been inducted and the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier-1 (IAC-1) which is under construction at Kochi is planned for induction in 2020. 

While IAC-2 is aimed at meeting all future requirements without any degradation in force levels.  A MiG-29 squadron would also be positioned at the ENC once the IAC-1 was inducted, he said. 

Speaking about the aircraft carrier construction plan, he informed that Navy has a requirement of two operational aircraft carriers. The maritime capability perspective plan of the Navy, therefore, envisages a force level of three aircraft carriers, to ensure availability of at least two Carrier Battle Groups at any given time, with the third carrier under maintenance. 

Plans were also afoot to build a 10,000-ton ship-lift facility at the Naval Dockyard here. Once commissioned, this would be the second such facility in the country after the one at Karwar, he said.