2007 - The Year That Was

 

 

§                    Major Exercises.      The Indian Navy’s units are in a state of excellent combat readiness, and a high tempo of operations is being maintained. Three major Tactical exercises were conducted during the year. These were, a theater level exercise conducted on the Western seaboard called the TROPEX 07, held from 06 to 20 Feb 07. This was followed by a Tactical cum Amphibious Exercise, conducted in Andaman Sea from 10 to 16 Oct 07 and finally the annual exercise conducted off Gujarat coast called the Defence of Gujarat Exercise (DGX) from 13 to 23 Nov 07.

 

§                    Presence Cum Surveillance Missions.      Surveillance is the primary peace-time operation undertaken by the Navy. Although the Maritime Zones of India (MZI) include only the territorial waters, the contiguous zone and our EEZ, our maritime region of primary interest extends from the Persian Gulf in the north to Antarctica in the south and from the east coast of Africa in the west, to the Strait of Malacca in the east. Over the past year, our ships submarines, aircraft and most importantly, the men and women who sail under the White Ensign continued the process of establishing India’s footprint in our national maritime-areas of interest, both within the Indian Ocean Region and beyond it.

 

§                    IMBL Patrols.  Co-ordinated patrols along the Maritime IBL were conducted out twice with Thailand and Indonesia to check gunrunning, smuggling, human trafficking etc in the region.

 

§                    Survey Abroad.   INS Sarvekshak was deployed at Mauritius for hydrographic survey in Apr 07.  The Deputy Prime Minister of Mauritius and the Chief of Naval Staff visited the ship on 21 Mar 07 for the handing over ceremony of the Mauritian Charts.

 

§                    Deepest Saturation Dive. The diving Support Vessel Nireekshak undertook the deepest ever saturation dive to a depth of 218 meters on 30 Mar 07, making us the only navy in south east Asia, to possess the capability to carry out diving beyond 200 meters.

 

§                    RECAPS.  Along with the implementation of review of career progression and structure of the Armed Forces as recommended by the Ajai Vikram Singh Committee for our officer cadre, we have also addressed the career progression policies of our sailors through the ‘Review of Career Profile of Sailors’ (RECAPS). The RECAPS is part of a tri-service initiative to enhance the assured promotion prospects for PBORs as well as rationalisation of pay groups in the three services and the case is already being examined at MoD.

 

§             YONAF.      The years 2005 and 2006 were declared ‘The Year of Naval Civilians’ and the ‘Year of the Sailor’ respectively. With focus on the Navy as a family, the current year was declared as ‘Year of the Naval Family’ to improve the quality of life and service conditions of our sailors and their families. The theme lays special emphasis on well being and happiness quotient of Naval families’ and, comprehensively addresses the need of building and revitalising our community values. We are focussing on 42 specific action points which encompass a wide range of activities ranging from Works, Medical, Education, Rehabilitation, Civic Amenities, Community Well Being, Welfare etc. A comprehensive brief on activities undertaken as part of YONAF initiatives is placed at enclosure.

 

§                    Enhancement of Educational Qualifications.  Enhancement of educational knowledge level is a continuous process in the Navy. The intake qualification of sailors has been upgraded to 10+2 wef Jul 07 with consequential revision of training curriculum and job specifications. The educational qualification of officers is also being enhanced to B Tech level with effect from inductions of 2009. All officers joining the new Naval Academy would undergo a four years B Tech course.

 

§                    LOKAYAN 2007.  Indian Sail training ship INS Tarangini had set sail for, on 10 Jan 07, a ten-month odyssey, named ‘Lokayan 07’. The voyage took the ship to 23 ports spread over 16 countries. The ship also participated in the ‘Tall Ships Challenge 2007’, a series of tall ship events and races organised on the Atlantic coast of USA and Canada. In addition to providing training to naval cadets, 18 trainee officers from 15 foreign countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Djibouti, Eritrea, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, UK and USA), 16 assistant commandants of the Indian Coast Guard and two cadets from the Rashtriya Indian Military College were embarked during various legs of the voyage. The ship entered Kochi on completion of the voyage on 29 Oct 07.

 

§                    Olympics Quota.      Two of our sportsmen have earned Olympic quota for participation in Beijing Olympics 2008, namely Sanjeev Rajput, CPO QA3, No. 124867-R in shooting (50 Meter Rifle 3 Position event) and AL Lakara, CPO PT, No. 132661-B in boxing (57 Kg Feather Weight category), during the recently concluded World Boxing Championship at Chicago, USA from 23 Oct – 03 Nov 07.

 

§                    Project ‘Sagar Parikrama’.     The Indian Navy has planned to send an officer on Solo Circumnavigation around the world under sails on an indigenous boat in end 2008. No Indian has ever done this feat before. It has been termed as project Sagar Parikrama and is likely to take 10-11 months. The boat design has been imported from Netherlands and will be constructed in an Indian boatyard. Cdr Dilip Donde, the soloist, is being trained in-house by Sailing experts.

 

§                    Pacific Partnership.      In keeping with the Indian Naval Doctrine of increased multilateral cooperation in the Indian Ocean Region, a multi-mission Pacific Partnership 2007 was officially launched on 01 Jun 07 as USS Peleliu, an amphibious ship of the US Navy departed Pearl Harbour for Southeast Asia and Oceania. The four-month humanitarian mission was launched to aid a part of the world ravaged by natural disasters, fractured by civil conflict or just beyond the reach of most modern conveniences. This mission brought together military personnel from India, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Japan, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Vietnam, and Papua New Guinea and various NGOs (Project Hope, ALOHA Mission, UCSD Pre Dental Society, East Meets West Foundation) to provide medical dental and veterinary treatment, civil construction and other humanitarian-assistance programs ashore and afloat in the Philippines, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and the Marshall Islands. A ten member Indian team comprising of the medical, veterinary and engineering elements embarked USS Peleliu at Manila on 18 Jun 07 and continued till the termination of the mission at Hawaii on 12 Sep 07. The medical team attended to aspects of Primary medical care, Optometry, Dental Care, Immunization, Dispensing of medicine, Surgeries, Biomedical equipment repair, Nursing and medical subject matter expert exchange, Preventive medicine, Public health and Veterinary Services. The medical team attended to a total of 31684 patients, including 300 surgeries on board the ship, provided more than 10,000 spectacles to patients. The Four member team from Engineers along with components of the SEABEES of the US Marines carried out construction of hospitals, health centers and children parks, installation of solar water heaters and also repaired various facilities in these countries.

 

§                    Naval Academy – Ezhimala.      The Naval Academy at Ezhimala is one of the on going projects of the Navy which would stand out as an outstanding monument to the ideals of learning and excellence and would be the prime seat of Naval training. The construction work at the Academy is in an advanced stage of completion and is scheduled to be commissioned in early 2009 by the H’ble Prime Minister. Topographical conditions, severe climate and other labour problems typical to Kerala has resulted in escalation of the cost of works. In order to complete all works in its entirety, revised CCS paper for Rs 698.78 Cr is under consideration at MoD.

 

§                    New Hospitals.     A 141 bedded hospital at Karwar,        INS Patanjali, has been recently commissioned and a 60 bedded at Naval Academy Ezhimala is under construction.

 

§                    UN & Antarctica Missions.     Indian Naval doctors are providing support to the UN hospital in Ethiopia and for the wintering Indian team at Antarctica.

 

 §                    New  Ship Handing Simulator.     An indigenous Ship Handling Simulator was inaugurated at Kochi by the FOC-in-C South on 16 May 07.  The state-of-the art SHS is utilised for a real near time training in ship handling and navigation for officer courses.  The simulator generates 270 degrees view and provides good visual effects. Facilities to change the time of the day,visibility conditions and sea state during an exercise are provided presently, nine types of IN platforms and six exercise scenarios can be simulated.  The range of  exercises includes pilotage, ship handling, station keeping and manoeuvring in company.   

 

§                    Bio–diesels and Environment Friendly Fuel.     Towards achieving a pollution free environment, the Indian Navy has taken up use of bio-diesels as fuels for non combat applications as a “Mission for the Nation” and bio-diesels are being used in the Navy, starting from the premier Engineering Base at INS Shivaji, Lonavla on non combat vehicles and Gensets. Further, towards harnessing environment friendly technologies the Indian Navy is looking at Fuel Cells as an option for its propulsion and power generation needs. Fuels Cells has already been successfully developed by DRDO for various commercial applications such use in automobiles. Utilizing this potential for Naval applications will be another great step, towards achieving self reliance in niche areas of technologies available to only few countries worldwide.