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Karwar naval base project back on track
"Project Seabird", the Navy’s
ambitious, but much-delayed endeavour to meet India’s
strategic needs in the coming decades through a futuristic
naval base at Karwar (Karnataka), finally appears to be gaining
some momentum now.
Defence ministry officials claim the project,
which was earlier scheduled to be completed by 1995, should
be up and running by 2005-2006. The Western Naval Command,
which controls the Navy’s ‘‘sword arm’’
in the shape of the potent western fleet, will then be progressively
shifted from Mumbai to Karwar as facilities start becoming
operational there.
"Apart from strategic reasons, the basic
aim of the upcoming Karwar naval base is to decongest the
existing bases on the west coast, especially Mumbai,’’
said an official.
With the naval bases at Mumbai, Cochin and
even Visakhapatnam getting increasingly crowded now, it is
felt that they will not be able to support the Navy’s
expanding strategic three-dimensional role in the future.
‘‘Project Seabird’’, which covers more
than 8,000 acres of land along the western coast, entails
creation of operational base facilities to handle a large
number of warships and aircraft, along with a dockyard for
repair, refit and modernisation of ships and submarines.
With marine works and construction now underway
at Karwar, the defence ministry is also firming up several
contracts with international collaborators to develop state-of-the-art
facilities at the proposed base.
A $32 million order, for instance, was recently
awarded to Rolls-Royce to provide a ship-lifting system at
the base. The ship-lift, with a capacity of almost 10,000
tonne, will be capable of handling vessels up to the Delhi
destroyer class warships. It should become operational towards
end-2004.
‘‘Project Seabird’’ has
already faced several time and cost overruns and experts say
the Navy must be prepared for more delays in the coming years.
Although conceived in the 1960s, the project was finally sanctioned
in August 1985. The project’s estimated cost was Rs 350
crore in 1985. It jumped to Rs 959 crore by 1990 on finalisation
of the detailed report.
Subsequently, despite a considerable reduction
in the scope of the enterprise, the projected cost of ‘‘Phase-I’’
of the project stood at Rs 1,294.41 crore in October 1995
when the defence ministry approved it.
New Delhi, June 24 , 2002,
Rajat pandit (Times News Network)
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