Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee opened the first phase of India’s giant western naval base INS Kadamba in Karwar, Karnataka state, on May 31/05, saying it would protect the country’s Arabian Sea maritime routes. Kadamba has become India’s 3rd operational naval base, after Mumbai and Visakhapatnam. It is valuable for its location, and also for its ability to transcend the fundamental capacity and security limitations of India’s other 2 naval bases.
INS Kadamba is being built near Karwar in the southern state of Karnataka. That Phase I construction was just part of India’s ambitious “Project Seabird,” a potential INR 50+ billion project that will include the naval base, and much more besides. India finished a scaled-back Phase I a full decade after the originally-envisaged 1995 completion date. As might be expected, Phase II is now likely to be approved at last, long after it was supposed to have been finished:
NS Kadamba, at Karwar
Rationale & Role
Kadamba has many virtues, but none loom larger than helping Navy decongest Mumbai on its northwest coast. Mumbai is close to Pakistan, but its heavy merchant shipping traffic, even heavier swarms of fishing and coastal craft, and large tourist draw make securing the naval base it very difficult – as India’s experience in the 1971 war with Pakistan proved. Throw in nearby oil terminal hazards, the constant need for dredging the long, shallow fairway to the sea, the need to berth submarines alongside normal ships, and no dedicated airfield, and Mumbai’s limitations become clear.
Visakhapatnam on the east coast houses Eastern Naval Command, and recently saw INS Rambilli added on the grounds improve submarine hosting. Even so, Visakhapatnam’s own breakneck growth as a city will limit how much more can be done with that base. More to the point, it’s poorly placed if India’s goal is to guard against Pakistan, act against piracy, and monitor its 3 key shipping chokepoints to the west: The Persian Gulf, Suez and the Red Sea, and the Cape of Good Hope.
INS Kadamba is the antidote to these problems: a naval-only west coast installation with depth, cover, and the accompanying facilities needed by a blue-water navy. Sandwiched between the craggy hills of the Western Ghats in the east, and the Arabian Sea in the west, Karwar’s position just south of Goa province, and NW of Bangalore, is an excellent naval location. Encompassing over 11,200 acres of land along a 26-km stretch of sea front, Kadamba, named after the famous 4th century dynasty, is the first base to be exclusively controlled by India’s Navy. The depth and width of the base’s approach channel means that all of India’s naval platforms will be able to sail into its harbor. Its hilly terrain offers excellent cover for ground installations, and pens cut into the rock face could conceal submarines.
The final base will be a linchpin of India’s naval presence, and its facilities offer a secure base for cooperation with other navies in the region. India’s future SSK Scorpene Class diesel-electric attack submarines will be based at INS Kadamba, once they’re delivered. The aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov is also scheduled to berth here after she is refurbished, renamed the Vikramaaditya, equipped with fighters and helicopters, and handed over to the Indian Navy around December 2012. Nor will they be alone. When Phase IIB expansions are complete, INS Kadamba is slated to be able to handle up to 50 front-line warships, plus at least 10 fast-interceptor craft (FICs), to be acquired for the Sagar Prahari Bal coastal security force.
In Pakistan, meanwhile, the new deep-water port of Gwadar is slated for use by its Chinese government financiers, who have their own vested interest in securing maritime routes to and from the Arabian Sea. Pakistan has a much smaller coastline, but a more prudently dispersed naval posture, with naval bases at Gwadar, Ormara & Karachi, and more austere facilities at Pasni and Jiwani.
INS Kadamba: Expansion
At commissioning under Commodore K.P. Ramachandran, INS Kadamba had a strength of 50 officers and 250 sailors, a number that will rise as facilities are upgraded. The base was initially under the command of “Commanding Officer, INS Kadamba”, but is slated to be headed by a “Flag Officer Commanding (Karwar)”, who in turn will be tasked by the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief for India’s Western Naval Command.
Phase I opened the base in 2007, with space for up to 11 front-line warships and 10 smaller FIC-type boats. Key facilities include the 10,000 tonne, 175 m x 28 m ship lift and ship transfer system for dry docking at the Naval ship Repair Yard. A new hospital, INHS Patanjali, has an initial capacity of 141 beds, upgradeable to 400. It will be accompanied by ammunition storage, depot ship, parade ground, drill shed, a logistics complex, an officers’ mess, base barracks for sailors, and even an accompanying township. The township is slated to eventually include married accommodation for officers and sailors, a shopping complex, a Sailors Institute, schools, a family clinic, gardens, parks etc.
Phase II will reportedly involve expansion of the berthing facilities to accommodate 40 more front-line warships, tugs and barges, raise manpower to 300 officers and around 2,500 sailors, and build a naval air station with a 6,000-foot runway. The Karnataka state government also wants to operate civilian commercial Airbus 320 flights at the airfield, requiring a runway extension to 10,000 feet. It was to have started in 2005 and been completed by 2010, at a cost of INR 25 billion. Now Phase IIA won’t even have approval to negotiate contracts until 2012, for work totaling an estimated INR 130 billion.
Under Phase-IIA, which will is scheduled to last until 2018-2019, Karwar will get an air base, armament depot, dockyard complex and missile silos; plus additional jetties, berthing and anchorage facilities that will grow its capacity from 10 front-line warships to 27-32.
Phase IIB is still far in the future, but notional figures involve hosting for up to 50 front-line warships. It may also end up “acquiring” some of Phase IIA’s features, if that expansion runs into problems.
No comments:
Post a Comment