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Journalism of Courage
The INS Delhi, which is ready to be commissioned into the Navy, is a significant step for the Indian Navy and particularly for the indigenous ship-building industry. The 6,700 tonne warship — built at a cost of Rs 760 crore — has a complement of 40 officers and 380 sailors. It is a powerful weapons platform fitted with 16 Uran ship-to-ship missiles as the main armament which can hit targets over a 100 km away. The state-of-the-art electronic warfare (EW) equipment on board the vessel also adds to its combat capabilities both for defence and offence.
The warship for tactical success has to ideally keep its opponents at bay and cannot allow hostile vessels/aircraft to penetrate an outer defensive ring of 300 km. The EW systems act as the ship’s `eyes’ and `ears’ to track enemy movements in relation to its own position and manoeuvre accordingly. And unlike a main battle tank or a fighter aircraft which face enemy opposition only in the air and land, the Delhi’s operational maritime environment includes three dimensional threats from the air, sea and sub-surface levels.
To deal with sub-surface or submarine threats, two ship-based helicopters can fly up to a 400 km radius for anti-submarine warfare operations. This involves dipping sonars into the sea to track the enemy lurking underwater. Thereafter depending on the range of target, the ship’s anti-submarine rockets and torpedoes (also helicopter-launched) are used to neutralise the foe.
The INS Delhi will be the 75th indigenously built warship in 50 years of Independence. Perhaps, the Navy is the most indigenous of the three services according to domestic defence industry circles. One reason for this could be that the Navy traditionally gets the smallest share of the defence budget and therefore has to make the most of its allocation. This could well be a rationale for reliance on indigenisation rather than on imports.
Significantly, the Directorate of Naval Design forms part of Naval Headquarters which plays an important role in streamlining project management and avoiding slippages. Whereas, the Army and Air Force are totally dependent on the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) to design indigenous systems which is an external agency to their organisational structures. To what extent can this arrangement be attributed for the delays in the Arjun Tank or the Light Combat Aircraft is debatable.
While the latest warship will add a much-needed boost to the Navy’s dwindling inventory of warships, it equally highlights the gaps in our maritime security infrastructure. A senior naval officer in the context of the INS Delhi’s entry into service said: “One swallow does not a summer make.”
Former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral V.S. Shekhawat during his tenure publicly referred to the lack of orders for building new warships. Such delays are bound to impact on the Navy’s operational capabilities. More importantly, industrial efficiency of a work force deteriorates in warship yards without adequate and relevant orders as they need to use their specialised skills regularly. The last warship INS Gomati joined the Navy a decade ago. Thereafter the naval shipyards under the Defence Ministry had little work.
The three defence yards are the Mazagaon Dock Ltd, Mumbai, Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers, Calcutta and Goa Shipyard Ltd, Goa. Besides, the Navy has two dockyards at Mumbai and Vishakhapatnam which undertake major warship repairs, in addition to two ship repair yards for minor work.Today technological obsolescence plagues the military shipbuilding infrastructure resulting in longer periods to build ships. A fallout of slack production cycles is an inability to use indigenous special grade shipbuilding steel developed by Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) units. It becomes unviable for SAIL to roll this steel for small orders.
Instead, imported steel is often used for building. Also building ships quicker provides the supporting ancillary industries more orders and thereby instills closer synergy between private industry and defence yards.
According to marine engineers, the defence yards pursue a traditional building route wherein the hull is built first and launched thereafter outfitted with the various systems. This is a very cumbersome and time-consuming process. On the other hand, in the contemporary method, `block outfitting’ is done and then these blocks are consolidated on the shopfloor which is a smoother and easier shipbuilding process. It enhances the work force’s efficiency as there is simpler access to various areas of the ship, besides operating on the shopfloor rather than on a ship afloat, they add.
For instance, welding with older metal arc technology has inadequate weld penetration instead of the latest automated carbon dioxide equipment which results in higher output. Similarly, the use of older technology cutting machines implies lower accuracy levels and this later consumes more time and energy on re-alignment of steel plates, etc.
The Navy necessarily interacts with 800 domestic engineering firms involved with electronics, computers/software, metallurgy, machine tools in order to source various related technologies/systems for shipbuilding. The naval technocratic wisdom of outsourcing work rather than develop in-house facilities helps to reduce capital investment especially given a situation of high-diversity-low-volume engineering requirements. Consider the military aeronautical engineering sector which in contrast produced several items in-house for various reasons despite the lack of economies of scale. Now there is a move to gradually reverse this anachronistic policy owing to commercial considerations. To that extent the defence yards have altogether avoided this industry model.
As a first step, the INS Delhi and INS Kirpan will participate next month in an international exhibition in Malaysia to showcase indigenous shipbuilding capabilities to the world. More importantly this decision should be followed up with a national policy to further develop the shipbuilding infrastructure. A strong awareness of the need to do so will enable the nation to emerge as a maritime power which is so essential to exploit the oceans wherein lie futuristic resources.
