Indian Navy is now a formidable blue water force, says Eastern Naval Command chief

Indian Navy has grown from coastal to blue water force, expanding reach from IOR to western Pacific, says Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command Vice Admiral Biswajit Dasgupta

The Indian Navy in the last four decades has grown from being just a coastal navy to a formidable blue water force that expands it reach from the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) to the western Pacific Ocean and from the Arabian Sea to the Atlantic, said Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command Vice Admiral Biswajit Dasgupta.

Speaking to a select group of media persons here on Friday, he said, “Earlier, our ships would sail up to about 1,500 nautical miles and come back to base, but now we are a global force and among the top five navies in the world.”

Today, our navy is one of the most respected navies in the globe and it is substantiated with the number of bilateral and multilateral exercises that we undertake with the top navies across the oceans in the world and we are also part of important associations such as the Quad, he said.

Vice Admiral Dasgupta will be retiring from service on July 31, after about 41 years in the navy.

Speaking about the future developments, he said that there is a need for more research oriented development, especially in fundamental research, as technology has become an integral part of the defence forces. “There is a need for an academia-industry research interface and the biggest challenge would be to speed the development of design and production of war assets such as ships, submarines and aircraft. The process is a bit slow right now and it has to be hastened up,” he said.

Speaking about the development of the navy, he said that the Indian Navy right now has cutting edge technology and is on par with any other developed navy.

“But since indigenous production is the key word and the government intends to become fully self-reliant (Atma Nirbhar) by 2047, we have to work as a team with full steam,” he said.