The Chief of the Naval Staff, AdmiralSunil Lanba, in a wide-ranging interview with The Hindu, clarifies that the Navy has only taken a purely technical decision in turning down the naval version of the light combat aircraft developed by the DRDO despite its strong commitment to indigenisation. He highlights the need to step up training facilities to meet personnel shortage and the Navy’s strong ‘Act East’ focus.
In an interview with The Hindu in 2009, then Navy Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta spoke about the all-round transformation that the Navy was undergoing in terms of capability, capacity, communication, domain awareness, strategy and training of personnel. The Navy was working to a perspective plan. Has it covered some ground in the bid to be a blue water force?
From 2009 till now, much water has flowed under the bridge. As far as communication goes, the naval satellite is up and running which now gives us a very large footprint across our areas of interest right up to the Western Pacific and parts of the Mediterranean and has led to net-centric operations. Procurement and induction of assets have gone as per the Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan (LTIPP), though there have been delays. We have added huge capabilities in the form of commissioning of new frigates and destroyers. With the Project15A (Kolkata-class destroyers), we have inducted new long-range SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) with MF-STAR (Multifunctional Surveillance Threat Alert Radar) which has brought in a huge capability by way of transparency of air domain and picture. The induction of the Boeing P8-I maritime patrol aircraft has been a force multiplier with the first lot of eight Boeings operational. We’ve signed the contract for the follow-up order for four more. With these eight aircraft, we have total transparency in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and the northern part of it. The nuclear submarine Chakra, which was leased, has been operational with us since 2012. Meanwhile, old platforms have been de-inducted. The MiG 29K and the aircraft carrier Vikramaditya have been commissioned and integrated. So I would say we are a truly blue water force.
We have come a long way in coastal security as well with the induction of fast interceptor crafts and ISVs (Immediate Support Vessels). The Sagar Prahari Bal (SPB) has been set up. Along with the Coastal Guard, the radar chain and the IMAC (Information Management and Analysis Centre) have been operationalised. There’s transparency in maritime domain awareness in the coastal security zone. We are better-integrated with multiple agencies involved in coastal security and the coastal States. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) have been set up. But we still have to travel some distance for a perfect system of coastal security in place.
All along, the Navy had placed thrust on indigenisation of assets, but is now facing flak for turning down the home-grown fighter LCA Navy which is being read as a retreat from its commitment to indigenisation.
We are the pioneers of indigenisation, which we started back in the 1960s and have worked shoulder to shoulder with the DRDO, whose naval labs also have naval personnel. As for the LCA (Light Combat Aircraft Tejas) programme, the Navy was the first service to support ADA (the Aeronautical Development Agency) in its development and the Air Force came on board at a later date. What the Navy wants is a deck-based fighter, but the LCA Navy Mk 1 doesn’t meet that requirement. Its power-to-weight ratio, the thrust the engine generates [are insufficient] and it’s underpowered for the airframe. Unfortunately, even the Mk2 variant doesn’t qualify. That’s why we took this case up to the Defence Ministry. But let me be clear on this. We continue to support the ADA and the DRDO in the development of an indigenous deck-based fighter. A good 25% of the financial support for the project comes from the Navy. As and when ADA produces a fighter that can operate from the deck of an aircraft carrier, we will be more than willing to acquire it and fly it. The LCA Navy was supposed to be flying off from [the aircraft carrier] Vikramaditya. The second carrier Vikrant should be sailing in 2019. So we want a deck-based fighter today. The timelines that ADA promised to generate one was over a decade back. We are looking at a period of at least a decade for ADA to produce a deck-based fighter. In the meantime, the Ministry has allowed us to go ahead and look for a fighter that meets our requirements following which we issued an RFI.
Timelines have slipped for the under-construction maiden indigenous carrier Vikrant as well thanks to delay in delivery of aviation equipment from Russia. Also, what’s the latest on the third carrier?
There’ve been some delays in the delivery of equipment for the aviation complex from Russia. We’ve been working in close coordination with the Cochin Shipyard [which is building the carrier] and the Russians to compress the timelines of delivery of those equipment so that the programme continues on schedule. We are hopeful that Vikrant will start going to trials in 2019.
As for the IAC-II [second indigenous aircraft carrier], we are taking up the case with the ministry for which we will get an approval sooner than later. We are looking at a CATOBAR aircraft carrier above 65,000 tonnes and with EMALS and an advanced air strip.
But delays have thrown off-track several projects like the LPDs, Project 75I and acquisition of MRH, to name a few.
The LPDs (Landing Platform Docks) will be constructed within the country. There are two private shipyards in the fray along with their foreign partners and we are hopeful of signing the contract [for LPD construction] with one of them by the end of the year.
The P 75I for construction of conventional submarines is part of the strategic partnership model and the ministry, along with the Service headquarters, has been working on the formulation which will be approved soon. We had a 13-year submarine building programme to build 24 submarines which got delayed by more than a decade. But Project 75 Scorpene is now coming on and we are inducting the first, Kalvari, by June-July. The second submarine has been launched and is on trials. Hopefully, we will commission all six of them with an interval of nine months between each. In fact, the Navy was keen to delink the P 75I from the strategic partnership model, but the ministry has taken a call that it will be part of it. In the meantime, to maintain force-levels, we decided to give life-extension refits to the Kilo-class [Sindhughosh-class] and the SSKs [Shishumar-class]. A total of six submarines are going to be given life extension. The first two of the Kilo class are going to Russia for mid-life refit while two will be done at Indian yards. Life extension of two SSKs will be done by Mazagon Dock with their German partners.
Absence of a multi-role helicopter (MRH) has created a critical capability gap. The induction has been going on for the past eight years. We had identified a company, Sirkosky, but the project got held up following the blacklisting of another company that supplied the VVIP helicopter. It’s a work in progress and we are pushing for the induction at the earliest. The medium range maritime reconnaissance (MRMR) aircraft acquisition got stalled with a single vendor situation following which it’s been clubbed with the Air Force’s multi-role transport aircraft programme of developing the aircraft in India under a strategic partnership. We will buy the aircraft and fit it with reconnaissance equipment.
What’ll be the fate of the decommissioned carrier INS Viraat?
The Navy would like Viraat to be converted into a museum, but it is not the Navy’s job to do that. We made an offer through the ministry to all the coastal States, but only Andhra Pradesh responded. The offer was that we will give the ship to you and you will convert it into a maritime museum at your cost, without any funding from the Defence Ministry. The proposal that we got from Andhra Pradesh was for a 50-50 partnership. The ministry is very clear that they are not going to do that. So, at the moment we have no proposal to convert her into a museum. If we don’t have a concrete proposal, we propose that the ship be scrapped. Off the cuff, what I thought was we could take her out to sea and make her a maritime museum by sinking her in 30-40 metres of water not far from the coast, thereby turning her into a diving site. Interested people will dive to have a sight of the ship.
We don’t want to go through the Vikrant experience in which we gifted the ship to the State of Maharashtra for one rupee and got stuck with her for 17 years, occupying valuable berthing space. And, then there was this hullabaloo when she was to be scrapped. It’s a costly affair to convert a carrier into a floating maritime museum and given the cost of construction of a jetty, it costs you roughly about Rs 1,000 crore.
How do you plan to address shortage of personnel and also attain gender parity by inducting women officers in combat roles?
There’s a steady growth in the number of sailors and officers being integrated and overall shortages as per percentage have come down, but we are constrained by our capacity to train. We have to get the right kind of people and have to compete with other avenues that are open to youngsters to get the kind of people we need. The shortages are gradually being bridged, with the Indian Naval Academy working in full capacity at 1,300 cadets. We induct about 800 officers each year, but 500 retire annually. So the net gain is 300. With increase in training capacity and the government sanctioning more numbers, we will be able to liquidate the shortage in five to six years.
The other issue is of inducting women to serve on board ships. We have about 570 women officers in branches such as education, logistics, ATC, as observers on maritime reconnaissance aircraft and the law, and not counting the doctors. We have identified ships on which [billeting] facilities are available for women officers and are working on the modalities of their induction on board ships. We need some minimum numbers [of women] on each ship. We are also going to do a survey and ask them if they want to serve on board ships. And then we will take a call and take this proposal forward.
A string of accidents had dented the image of the Navy a couple of years ago. It seemed to be a thing of the past when frigate INS Betwa collapsed on its side in the drydock late last year…
The marine environment is a difficult environment to operate in and riddled with dangers. Our safety record is as good as or better than majority of the large navies in the world. To be honest, I cannot give an assurance that there will be zero accidents. But SOPs have been put in place and a culture of safety is being enforced. The number of accidents has come down drastically lately. Some of those past incidents have been blown out of proportion by the media.
INS Betwa’s was an accident that shouldn’t have happened. A board of inquiry is looking into it. Basically, there was a mistake in calculating the stability [on the blocks]. We have set the ship upright and it is afloat now. She was in a scheduled refit and we are hopeful of seeing her back in service by April, 2018. In the meantime, we are enforcing a safety culture and if there’s any negligence, due punishment is given.
The Navy has been of late focusing heavily on the eastern side, strengthening the security apparatus along the island chains…
In Andaman and Nicobar, newer and more capable assets are in place in the form of Kora-class ships [corvettes] and there’s a long term infrastructure plan where airfields in the northern group of islands are being strengthened and lengthened for heavier aircraft to operate. Similar project is taking place in the south. Infrastructure plans of making OTR (operational turn around) facilities in the southern group of islands have started to move. The Boeing P8I [long range maritime recce aircraft] is being deployed from Port Blair. At the same time, our cooperation with our neighbours in the east has grown. We have resolved our maritime boundary issues with Bangladesh and there’s much greater interaction with Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore. It’s no just ‘look east’, we are also ‘acting east’ in accordance with the government’s policy. We are assisting island nations in the IOR and neighbours in the East in capability enhancement and are doing coordinated patrols with Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia. We are also training a large number of their officers with us.
What role have forums initiated by the Indian Navy, IONS (Indian Ocean Naval Symposium) and Milan, played in influencing the geostrategic contours of the region?
The IONS was a naval initiative set up with the government’s support in 2008. We have 23 members and nine observers, including China and the charter of business has been signed by all 23 members. Its chairmanship started with India, being the founding member, and it’s gone through the region – to the UAE, South Africa, Australia and Bangladesh is the present chairman. It will go to Iran next. Three sub groups have been formed for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR), information sharing and maritime security. So IONS has made good progress.
Milan is an interaction at the level of the commanding officers and delegations. That’s also grown. It’s been a win-win situation in both IONS and Milan.
