Indian Navy’s focus consists of unmanned underwater capabilities, says Defence Secretary

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Indian Navy is specializing in growing its underwater capabilities protecting the rising significance of underwater warfare. Informing the Standing Committee on Defence, Defence Secretary Dr Ajay Kumar mentioned that the Navy is working quite a bit on this space. This comes amid a decrease allocation of capital funds to the Navy as famous by the committee.

It was throughout oral proof to the committee members, when requested about what sort of steps the Ministry was taking with regard to modernisation that the Defence Secretary, talking concerning the Navy, mentioned, “The force is focusing on three focus areas — unmanned aerial vehicles; unmanned underwater vehicles, which is a smaller submarine; and underwater domain awareness.”

The Defence Secretary identified that numerous info on this space is assessed however these three are the main target areas, “In the coming days, as the importance of modern warfare in space is increasing, similarly it’s increasing below the water surface. “Earlier, we did not have much capability in this area but at present the Navy is working a lot on it,” added Ajay Kumar.

While the federal government is but to approve the constructing of a second Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC-2) for the Navy, with IAC-1 prone to be commissioned this 12 months, the IAC-2 options within the record of “planned acquisitions” in 2022-2023 within the Navy’s record, together with 20 different platforms, together with a number of unmanned platforms, each aerial and underwater.

The Report of the Standing Committee tabled within the Lok Sabha on Thursday mentions the deductions within the allocation of the vital capital funds that “cardinally provides for expenditure on modernisation, enhancement of force level, infrastructure development, etc.”

“Under Capital Head, in BE for FY 2022-23, the Navy’s projection was Rs. 67,622.96 crore and allocation to be made is Rs. 47,590.99 crore. There is a deduction of Rs. 25,281.97 crore in allocation vis-a-vis demand,” it mentioned.

There was a deduction in allocating funds for capital expenditure within the 12 months 2021-22 below the revised estimate. “In RE 2021-22, the projection of Navy was Rs. 50,011.38 crore against which an allocation of Rs. 46,021.54 crore was made, hence, Rs. 3989.84 crore short of demand,” mentioned the report.