All Sindhurakshak victims' families to get compensation

The Centre has decided to bypass a legal provision to ensure compensation to families of Navy personnel whose bodies could not be recovered following the accident involving the INS Sindhurakshak.

The families will receive provident fund, gratuity and other compensation.
Legally, if the body is not recovered, the family has to wait for seven years before the person is legally declared dead.

“This incident will be considered a special case. The Navy will be asked to release the compensation. In all probability, they are dead,” Defence Minister A K Antony told the Rajya Sabha in response to Bahujan Samaj Party leader Satish Chandra Mishra’s query.
Naval divers have retrieved eight bodies, which have been kept at J J Hospital in Mumbai for DNA matching. It is feared that some of the bodies were incinerated in the extreme heat, which had even melted the submarine’s 30-mm thick steel plate.

Antony said almost half of the submarine was buried in silt. Six companies are surveying the area. They are Titan Salvage and SMIT from Singapore, Ocean Centre Diving from New Zealand, Arihant Shipping and Duke Offshore from India and an European firm, Graph Technical Marine.

Only after the ship is pulled out of water will assistance of Russians be sought to assess the damage and cause of the accident.

Detailed inquiry

A board of inquiry will probe into all aspects of the massive explosion, including the sabotage angle. “All aspects of the likely causes of the incident will be looked into. Nothing is ruled out,” the defence minister told the Rajya Sabha.

During preliminary tests, no trace of TNT was found either in the water samples or a yellow material, which was found near the jetty.

A team from the Navy, comprising an officer from a Naval armament depot and a commanding officer of a missile base, has been asked to check the status of weapons in the submarine. The Navy has also ordered a safety audit of all operational submarines.
Admitting that the accident has cast a shadow on India’s maritime capability, Antony said all existing submarines will be upgraded till new units are inducted.

Six submarines are under construction at Mazgaon dock in Mumbai, while a cabinet committee on security will decide on constructing six more submarines in India. “Every year, the Navy will get five new warships from the Indian yards,” Antony said.