Navy warships sitting ducks at sea
*May 16, 2007 *
Vishal Thapar
New Delhi: The Comptroller and Auditor General says four frontline warships recently acquired by the Indian Navy are sitting ducks for enemy submarines.
The latest CAG has put a question mark over the Naval fleet’s battle worthiness and says the warships were recently inducted into the Navy without Sonar capability.
This suggests that these mighty ships have little or no capability to detect submarines. The reference is to the three Talwar class stealth frigates and the guided-missile destroyer, INS Mumbai.
The auditor’s view of Defence Procurement is that India is not getting its money’s worth. And worse, it’s being done in a way that could gravely compromise national security.
The reason for the lack of Sonars on these ships is a familiar one: the DRDO promised and then failed to deliver.
Meanwhile, the Navy is putting up a brave face.
“If it was commissioned without the Sonar capability then I will be very surprised. But if it was not contemporaray then I think in the Indian Ocean, the Navy can live with it,” says Defence Analyst, Commodore Ranjit Rai.
But that’s not all. The Rs 673 crore programme for upgrading India’s maritime reconnaissance capability is a dud, the CAG concludes.
The upgraded Ilyushin-38 aircraft are defenceless, flying without the avionics and weapon systems needed for warfare at sea.
Contracts for anti-ship missiles and torpedos and sonobuoys for detecting submarines have not been signed even six years after the project was initiated.
So is the Indian Naval muscle fake? The CAG has stirred the pot and the jury is out.
