The Hindu : Kerala News : Building a naval academy

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Wednesday, Jan 07, 2009
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Building a naval academy

The construction of the academy was done in a manner that best suited the setting.

Cmde. T.K. Ashokan

As a hydrographer, he has carried out many sea surveys for the Indian Navy, adhering to stringent international standards, and has prepared many navigation charts that have been instrumental in securing the country’s maritime assets. But this is a different ballgame that Commodore T.K. Ashokan would remember with relish, says S. Anandan.

Director General of the Naval Academy (Navac) Project in Ezhimala since June, 2006, Commodore Ashokan has had a laborious task at hand this time around heading the project management authority expending the capital investment on the project. With the academy all set to get dedicated to the nation, he feels “a tremendous sense of satisfaction and pride” on many counts.

“Everything concerning the academy is distinctly of the finest quality and is comparable to the best in the world,” he says.

“When the project was conceived, it was thought it would take at least eight years to complete the civil work. We only started civil work in 2002 but have been able to complete it on schedule.”

The project as such, however, got delayed thanks to litigation and the cumbersome process of land acquisition, but once things fell in place for the Navy, it gathered momentum.

In the meantime, the cost of infrastructure building went up from the original Rs 166 crore to Rs 721.98 crore in 22 years’ time, but the Navy was not ready to compromise on quality and additional funds came in to meet the requirements.

Superior specifications of world standards were maintained before tendering work. Even the architect, Chandigarh-based Satnam Namita and Associates, was zeroed in on after a nation-wide competition.

The construction of the academy was done in a manner that best suited the setting. The idea was to have the structures stay in harmony with nature. For a place that is rich in history, a concrete jungle would have been disastrous.

“The current set of structures we built up does not stand out, but merge with the background instead,” he says. It is a self-reliant, nevertheless harmonious setting occupying only 40 per cent of the total campus area and complements the backwaters, the sea, the ruins of Tipu’s outpost, the light house nearby and the majestic Mount Dilli.

“Environment management was done with great care. For every tree that was felled to make way for the academy, 10 were planted. For garbage disposal, a sewage treatment plant was also set up,” says Commodore Ashokan.

All the while, he kept shuttling between his camps in Kochi, Ezhimala and Delhi to coordinate the activities.

Among the major works left now is drudging of the Kavai backwaters to make available a depth of 2.5 metres as the depths available are not uniform and fall short of the requirement at places.

“For the proposed Watermanship Training Centre to be optimally utilised, this is required. Drudging should, therefore, begin soon,” concludes the Commodore.

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