PM Modi awards innovative minds of Indian Navy

New Delhi, Dec 04: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday night awarded the coveted Innovation Trophy to both uniformed and defence civilian personnel, of afloat and ashore units of the Indian Navy.

Attending the traditional Navy Day reception at Navy House in Delhi, Modi gave away the recently-constituted awards in pursuance with the government's mission to promote and facilitate innovations among Indian youth.

The PM was shown around some of the salient innovations and indigenisation efforts initiated by the Indian Navy.

Among the display were a live demonstration of technological innovations and indigenisation initiatives in combat technologies in a set-up that mimics the Operations Room of a warship at sea.

Innovative use of the dedicated naval satellite Rukmani in providing telemedicine solutions was also shown to the PM.

Indian Navy says that the new initiative has led to enthusiastic competition amongst a wide cross-section of young officers, sailors and defence civilians of various trades.

"Units of all Commands, including Andaman and Nicobar Command, had participated in the competition. A total of 135 entries highlighting significant innovations in operations and maintenance domains, were received as nominations after short-listing by respective Commands.

The process of selection of winner and runner-Up in each category was undertaken by a selection committee comprising of domain experts, as per a pre-decided assessment matrix," says Navy Spokesperson Capt DK Sharma.

Power of innovative problem solving key: Navy

Navy says the end objective is to effectively use the power of innovative problem solving as a force multiplier and redouble the momentum towards self reliance through indigenisation and innovation.

Among the Operational units, INS Sindhudhwaj (Cdr Nandkumar Das, Commanding Officer) emerged winner for ingenious repairs of submarine exhaust system under most challenging conditions whilst on patrol, ensuring uninterrupted dived operation during a critical Search and Rescue Mission.

The runner up in this category was INS Sarvekshak (Capt Rajesh Bargoti, CO) for innovative solution for tidal measurements during hydrological surveys by use of land based terrain mapping equipment and floating buoys mounted with prisms.

Among the shore establishments, INS Tunir (Commodore PK Singh, CO) was declared the winner for in-house modification to legacy surface to surface missiles (originally designed for sub-sonic flight) to fly at supersonic speed.

The runner up in this category was Naval Dockyard, Mumbai (Rear Admiral SP Lal, Admiral Superintendent), for the first ever erection of a boiler onboard a commissioned warship resulting in savings of approx Rs 267 crore.

OneIndia News