Why in news?
The submarine arm of the Indian Navy is celebrating its golden jubilee this year
How has the submarine arm progressed?
- The submarine arm of the Indian Navy has made notable accomplishments since its inception.
- This is possibly due to the professionalism of the human resource that lies at its core.
- India acquired its first submarine, the INS Kalvari, on December 8, 1967.
- In the intervening decades, the Navy has progressed to designing and indigenously building SSBNs (Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear), the INS Arihant.
- The Navy has also invested in building conventional boats in India through partnership programmes with foreign suppliers.
- Notably, India is the first country in the world to move straight to SSBNs, without moving up the scale from conventional boats.
- The combination of warship building, submarine building and finally the nuclear submarine building has supported a whole range of SME/MSME segments of industry in India.
- Further the plans for acquisition in place and operationalising them would give India a very credible underwater capability.
What are the shortfalls?
- DSRV - Submarine arm is one of the most hazardous and high-risk military specialisation.
- To prepare for any exigency, every submarine-operating navy also invests in a deep submergence rescue vessel (DSRV).
- Or it supposedly has access to DRSV with navies that have such a capability.
- Sadly, the Indian Navy does not have a dedicated DSRV even as it enters its 51st year.
- This void is expected to be filled only later in 2018.
- Administrative - The long-delayed DSRV acquisition symbolises the systemic incompetence of the Indian military machine.
- The inability of the Indian higher defence management ecosystem has deprived the Navy’s submarine arm of a critical rescue capability.
- The complacency in decision-making and ineffectiveness in policy formulation have adversely affected the Indian military profile.
- Corruption - It was attempted to build two of the most advanced design of the German HDW submarines under the ‘buy and make’ concept.
- However, it had to be prematurely abandoned due to the infamous HDW scandal and allegations of financial impropriety in the deal.
- Resultantly, the indigenous submarine programme was set back by three decades.
- It has taken decades for the procurement procedures to be revised to address issues related to blacklisting and the role of agents.
- Manpower constraints - Constraints related to recruitment significantly impacts the modernisation and acquisition process.
- Decommissioning old platforms to compensate for the immediate requirement of new induction has its own challenges.
- A new platform demands trained manpower for operational needs.
- Very importantly, it requires a host of administrative, logistics and repair support facilities that are manpower-critical.
What is the way forward?
- The navy has to strategically overcome the challenge of balancing the short and long term implications on manpower.
- The core national security interests should be insulated from the vagaries of political/electoral compulsions.
- Beyond the ceremonial symbolism, the Indian Navy should be given due focus for its substantive policy-related issues.
Source: The Hindu
