Rajnath Singh after submarine sortie: Navy drills not meant to provoke but to ensure security

During his visit to the Karwar naval base in Karnataka, Singh went on a sea sortie on the INS Khanderi and got a “first-hand insight into the combat capabilities and offensive strength of the state-of-the-art Kalvari-class submarine”.

Navy preparations, Singh “assured”, are “not a provocation to any aggression, but a guarantee of peace and security in the Indian Ocean region”, the defence ministry said in a statement.

After the sortie, he said the Indian Navy was a modern, potent and credible force, capable of being vigilant, valiant and victorious in all situations, and added, “Today, the Indian Navy is counted among the frontline navies of the world… The world’s largest maritime forces are ready to work and cooperate with India.”

Speaking about the commissioning of India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, which will be based in Karwar, which is set to become one of the largest naval bases in Asia, Singh said it would bolster the maritime security of the country, along with the INS Vikramaditya, which too is based at Karwar.

The ministry statement said that during the four-hour sortie, “the full spectrum of capabilities of underwater operations of the stealth submarine was demonstrated” to Singh, and he witnessed a “wide range of operational drills with the submarine demonstrating the advanced sensor suite, combat system and weapon capability which provides it a distinct advantage in the subsurface domain”.

He also got a glimpse of the submarine’s capability to effectively counter anti-submarine operations by an adversary. He was accompanied by Chief of Navy Admiral R Hari Kumar along with other senior Navy and ministry officials.

The operational sortie was accompanied by the deployment of ships of the Western Fleet, an anti-submarine mission sortie by a P-8I MPA and Sea King helicopter, a fly-past by MiG 29-K fighters and a search and rescue capability demonstration, the statement said.

With this, Singh has now “witnessed first-hand the three-dimensional combat capability of the Indian Navy, after having embarked on the INS Vikramaditya in September 2019 and conducted a sortie on the P8I long-range maritime reconnaissance anti-submarine warfare aircraft earlier this month,” the statement said.

The INS Khanderi, part of the P-75 project, under which six conventional submarines are being made in India, was commissioned on September 28, 2019. The Navy has commissioned four of these Kalvari-(Scorpene) class submarines, and two more are likely to be inducted by end next year.

“The induction of these submarines have significantly enhanced the Indian Navy’s underwater capability in the Indian Ocean region,” the statement added.