Poor maintenance of submarines and warships is crippling India’s navy. Six months after a massive explosion sank a submarine, Sindhurakshak, a fire inside another, Sindhuratna, and the immediate resignation of navy chief Admiral D K Joshi are a grim reminder that all is far from well with India’s navy.
Joshi’s prompt resignation, owning moral responsibility, is praiseworthy. But 12 mishaps involving conventional submarines and warships in a span of seven months could potentially cripple the navy’s operational capabilities. This may also severely impair India’s ambitions of becoming a strategic blue-water power able to operate far beyond its extensive coastline.
The damage to Sindhuratna, caused by a fire in the submarine’s battery kit, is one in a series of frightful episodes which point to a troubling question: how well is the navy, which seeks to play a dominant role in the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, equipped to maintain its assets during peacetime?
Not very well, as the number of maritime mishaps and subsequent lack of corrective action indicate. Sindhurakshak, Sindhuratna and Sindhugosh (which ran aground in January because of high levels of silt near the harbour) are Russian Kilo-class submarines that were to form the backbone of India’s conventional submarine force.
More than half of submarines have completed 75% of their operational lives. Long before Sindhurakshak went out of action, only six of India’s 14 submarines were operating at any given time. Effectively, very few guard the coastline.
The navy’s plans to build, with French assistance, a new class of conventional submarines called Scropene have been delayed. Leave alone the rapid expansion and modernisation programme envisioned in the face of concerns about China’s naval ambitions, India’s navy is obviously failing to preserve even those of its vessels that are still seaworthy.
Passing the buck to bureaucrats or political leaders does not hold much water here. It will serve India’s defence establishment well not to brush its own failures or lapses under the carpet and thoroughly investigate recent accidents, which have caused an unacceptable depletion in the navy’s force levels.
Next, naval headquarters and defence ministry must act in tandem to replace aging platforms by inducting state-of-the-art vessels, submarines as well as warships, besides avoiding delays in commissioning indigenously built nuclear submarines. Any deviation from these core issues bedevilling the navy will defeat the maritime doctrine that sought to enhance India’s status as a regional naval power.
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