Navy all set to become balanced naval force

Chennai, May 18 (UNI) The Indian Navy is all set to emerge as a balanced and powerful naval force by the year 2017, Naval Chief Admiral Arun Prakash said today.

Addressing a press conference here, Admiral Prakash, who was here to discuss security on international maritime border, said ''today Indian Navy is a blue water force and will emerge as a balanced and powerful force in the next ten years.'' The Navy had taken up building six submarines and 35 warships and would acquire two aircraft carriers, besides essential ships. The first aircraft carrier 'INS Vikaramaditya' would be inducted into the force in 2008. The other carrier would be built in Cochin.

He said the joint exercise between US navy ship 'Ronald Regan' and Indian ship INS Virat was just completed and presently a joint exercise with UK Royal Navy was going on. The UK had brought a submarine and a ship, he said. Similar exerises with France, Oman and Singapore were on the cards, he added.

Admiral Prakash stressed the need to be alert in view of the spurt in piracy, gun running and drug smuggling. India was talking to countries like Sri Lanka and Maldives to create a mechanism called 'Marine domain awareness', under which information would be pooled to watch the movements of ships. Once this was worked out, ''we can come to know about movements of the ship and details of captains of vessels and crew members.'' Once the Sethusamudram project was completed, it would help the Navy to reduce sailing time between the west coast and east coast by 12 hours. ''It will also save fuel and we are happy about it,'' he added.

Asked about a ship used for environmental monitoring as part of the Sethusamudram project sinking off Nagapattinam port, he said it was being investigated, whether it sank because of explosion of gas cylinders. ''We have sent parts of the ship for investigation.''

UNI