Navy's preparation not a provocation to aggression: Rajnath Singh

Commissioning of the Indian Navy’s second aircraft carrier Vikrant is "not a provocation to any aggression, but a guarantee of peace and security in the Indian Ocean region", Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Friday without naming China, as India is set to operate two aircraft carriers simultaneously.

“Vikrant will bolster the maritime security of the country, along with INS Vikramaditya. The preparations being made by the Indian Navy are not a provocation to any aggression, but a guarantee of peace and security in the Indian Ocean region,” Singh said at Karwar.

The defence minister made those comments after reviewing the progress of Project Seabird on the development of the Karwar naval base and embarking on a four-hour journey on board INS Khanderi, one of the Indian Navy’s Kalvari class submarines, during which he was given a detailed briefing on the navy’s underwater operations.

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Vikrant, India’s first home-grown aircraft carrier, is likely to be inducted into the navy in the second half of 2022 as trial results are successful so far. The two aircraft carriers which will operate MiG29K jets will be based at Karwar.

The minister arrived on Thursday evening for a two-day visit to Kadamba Naval Base where he discussed the progress on Project Seabird with Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral R Hari Kumar, Western Naval Command Commanding in Chief Vice Admiral Ajendra Bahadur Singh and Karnataka Zone chief Rear Admiral Atul Anand.

Once completed, Karwar will house 32 ships and submarines and 23-yard craft making it the biggest naval base in Asia. The base would be having 10 operational Piers (to provide 4.7 Km of berthing space), dockyard and fleet base buildings and a naval air station.

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The Cabinet Committee on Security approved the second phase of the project (phase-IIA) in December 2012 at a cost of Rs 13,161 crore, which has now increased to Rs 19,603 crore. The first phase of the project, costing Rs 2,629 crores, saw facilities for basing of eleven ships and ten-yard crafts.

The underwater trip gave the defence minister the first-hand experience in the navy's three-dimensional combat capability, after embarking on INS Vikramaditya in September 2019 and conducting a sortie on the P8I Long Range Maritime Reconnaissance Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft earlier this month.

The second phase would also witness augmentation of the existing facilities such as the armament depot, hospital and the residential colony.

The minister's operational sortie was accompanied by the deployment of ships of the Western Fleet, an anti-submarine mission sortie by a P-8I MPA and Sea King helicopter, a fly past by MiG 29-K fighters and a search and rescue capability demonstration.