Ageing mine-sweepers leave navy vulnerable
imperative, no new mine-sweeping vessel was inducted since 1988. Bureaucratic delays and the inability of the higher-defence management matrix to comprehend the strategic salience of the issue (the dysfunctional trait ) resulted in a situation where it took almost 15 years years for the government of the day to initiate a new acquisition from a South Korean entity. This was the NDA I period.
Desultory attempts were made to have a tie-up with a credible foreign supplier and the process that began in 2008 concluded the price negotiations in 2011. A South Korean firm was identified but in keeping with the Indian penchant to cancel or freeze any defence deal if there is a whiff of fiscal transgression, a charge levied by an Italian competitor saw the entire acquisition project being referred to the CVC (Central Vigilance Commission). The BJP then in opposition went for the Congress jugular and in short, India’s zero-sum electoral rivalry laid the perfect ‘political’ mine for the IN’s mine-sweeper acquisition plans to remain stillborn. It is now 2017 and the navy has a shrinking mine-sweeping capability and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Buying these platforms outright from a foreign supplier or building them in India with a foreign supplier are time-consuming and as the Parliament panel pointed out, the earliest induction is a good five years away. Till then the ships that enter and leave Indian ports including front-line naval ships will be vulnerable to the lethal mine. The navy needs a minimum of 30 such vessels for the major ports and the grim reality is that it will soon have none.
An immediate option is to explore the possibility of leasing these vessels from navies that have excess capability – and both the USA and Japan could be potential suppliers. India has recently concluded substantive defence cooperation agreements with these countries and some innovative fast-track agreements need to be initiated on a war-footing. The parliamentary committee has alerted the executive and the citizen. India’s vulnerability in the mine counter measure capability should not go down the Bofors route.
An army officer died while performing operational duties in eastern Ladakh amid harsh weather, an army statement said on Friday. He has been identified as Major L Rambo Singh of Thangmeiband village in Imphal district, Manipur.
“Maj L Rambo Singh of the Indian Army laid down his life while performing operational duties in extreme harsh climate and rough mountainous terrain of eastern Ladakh,” said a defence spokesperson. “The officer was martyred while leading a convoy of vehicles carrying operational stores from Tangtse to Karu over extremely inhospitable terrain,” he added. HTC