This
stage enables balance payment to suppliers and repeat orders. Future ships of
the Kolkata class will not have to undergo lengthy ‘limit and tilting’ trials,
and suppliers can obtain certificates of acceptance to pursue exports, though
the export procedure is cumbersome even after ‘An End User Certificate’ is provided
to MoD (Ministry of Defence). Only a one year permit is provided and industry
is looking forward to the issuance of a revised Defence Procurement Procedure
(DPP-2015) and list of ‘Strategic Partners’ which will permit appointment of agents
for exports, and changes in offsets and investments. These recommendations have
been made by the Dhirendra Singh Committee and Dr VK Atre, former DRDO head, to
help private industry to compete with PSUs in a level-playing field to Make in
India and contribute. At INS Kochi’s commissioning Mr Parrikar affirmed Government’s
commitment to develop a Blue Water Navy, which can dominate the Indian Ocean Region
(IOR), and stated India’s Navy is viewed as friendly by neighbouring nations.
India is Net Security Provider in the IOR, and a Blue Water Navy entails the capability
of self-sustained expeditionary force operations away from home shores for prolonged
periods, and fosters a Blue Economy for India. For enhanced security of
the Indo- Pacific, India will need at least two task forces for the Eastern and
Western seaboards led preferably by an aircraft carrier with organic aviation
assets, fleet ships, nuclear propelled submarines for advance protection and support
tankers. Towards this endeavour, the stealthy 7,400-tonne INS Kochi is another
powerful addition, and paves the path for the last Project 15A Chennai, and three
improved Type 15B destroyers to be turned out faster by MDL. Support is provided
to suppliers who can indigenise naval equipment by Navy’s Directorate of Indigenisation
(DOI) which arranges ship visits to selected suppliers to witness imported equipment
operating. Navy is known to hold a supplier’s hand from initiation of a project
to fruition. This was complemented at the CII- Navy ‘Indigenisation and Innovation’
seminar held in DRDO premises in New Delhi in mid August, where two hitherto restricted
Naval directorates, the Directorate of Naval Design (DND) and Weapons Electronics
Systems Engineering Establishment (WESEE), were unfolded to industry. Chief
of the Naval Staff Admiral RK Dhowan stated that India had achieved the capability
to design and build all Arihant INS Kolkata types of warships and submarines in
India, and confirmed over 47 warships including a 65,000-tonne aircraft carrier
Vishal at Cochin Shipyard Ltd (CSL) and six Scorpene submarines are on order,
none from abroad. India’s small 75,000 strong Navy’s achievements in Make in India
are encouraging, and INS Kochi has an indigenous content of 85 per cent of machinery,
equipment, electronics and control systems and imports are limited to the primary
M/F Star phased array radar from Israel and some weapon support systems. Kochi’s
cost is reported to be around `4,500 crore ($720 million), which is cheaper than
comparable costs of missile destroyers built abroad like the Type 45 Daring class
in UK or Zumwalt class DDX in US whose costs have crossed the $1.2 billion mark.
The Navy’s large order book in MoD’s defence PSU shipyards and few in private
shipyards has seen subcontractors and MSMEs contribute and save valuable FFE.
Some have succeeded in exports and shipbuilding provides large employment. Governments
provide subsidies in the larger interests of national economy but in India disincentives
like excise and sales taxes levied on private Indian companies, which makes imported
assemblies cheaper, needs correction. A policy to provide Exchange Rate Variation
(ERV) that is provided to PSUs, is being extended to private companies is a welcome
incentive. ATV Project Akanksha, is DRDO’s set up which has a submarine
building yard at Visakhapatnam called Ship Building Centre (SBC). The first 6,500-tonne
nuclear submarine INS Arihant built at SBC in a public-private partnership (PPP)
with Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T) is on diving trials off Visakhapatnam with an indigenous
85 MW reactor supplied by BARC. Two more, larger nuclear ICBM submarines (Aridhaman
and another) are progressing. The 750 km nuclear tipped K-15/B-05 plug and play
missiles will be fitted on Arihant and longer range K-4 with over 3,000 km range
will provide India’s second strike from under the sea, completing the nuclear
triad. The cost of the classified ATV project is estimated to be over `8,000
crore and much is Indian content, which has benefitted PSUs like BHEL, Bharat
Electronics Ltd (BEL), Midhani and many small and large private companies like
Walchandnagar Industries, Godrej, pump and piping manufacturers like KSB and L&T’s
suppliers. Details of the funding outside the defence budget have not been made
public. ATV’s former DG Vice Admiral PC Bhasin speaking in a seminar stated almost
every item of machinery imported was in duplicate, and provided to industry for
exposure at the DRDO’s sprawling Defence Material Testing Establishment (DMTE)
at Hyderabad. ATV project and BrahMos are beacons to show how to make Indian.
CONTRIBUTIONS MADE BY DND AND WESEE To help
Make in India, Navy has selectively made public the roles the DND and the WESEE
which have contributed significantly in achieving the status of a builder’s Navy,
DND began as the Corps of Naval Constructors, on November 17, 1956 with few foreign
trained naval architects led by late Mr S Paramanandan, Sam Dotiwala and VS Dhumal
and Cmde Ved Prakash Garg (1929–1983). Constructor officers trained at Royal Naval
College London and others from IIT Kharagpur, were the pioneers who set up a small
‘Central Design Office’ in 1964 which later expanded into the DND in 1970 to design
warships in a Surface Ship Group (SSG) and a classified Submarine Group. Both
jointly boast of large state-of-the- art design bureaus, internet-connected real
time to PSU shipyards with the Tribon and other CAD/CAM virtual softwares with
a work force of over 300 men and women. The SSG in New Delhi’s Greater
Kailash has contributed designs for construction, repair and maintenance of warships
and been Navy’s in house R&D institution with WESEE. Both played roles in the
naval variants of the country’s prestigious Guided Missile Programmes like the
Dhanush, BrahMos, K-15/B-05 which plug and play and ATV’s ballistic missile nuclear
submarine Arihant undergoing deep sea trials off Visakhapatnam. About 150 shipwright
sailors are trained at the Navy’s Shipwright school at the Naval Dockyard Visakhapatnam,
and serve on board ships for damage control. The WESEE, like the DARPA
of US in RK Puram Defence complex is where research work and execution of Navy’s
many classified projects began as a Weapon and Systems Office (WESO). Today WESEE
is staffed with DRDO men and women scientists working alongside naval officers.
WESEE has innovated operational solutions, designed naval networks, catered for
cyber security solutions, fitted interactive modems for full range of communications
including space satellite GSAT-7 and inter-phased Russian and Western weapon systems
on board frontline ships after Navy adopted the STD 1553 standards of power supply
for inter-operability. WESEE has designed what is a world class Combat
Management System (CMS) on board INS Kolkata and Kochi which has been improved
upon from naval ships commissioned in earlier decades. WESEE’s products include
Link 1 to Link 3 for HF/VHF data digital communications, manufactured and set
to work by BEL which also supplies indigenous panoramic sonars. Atlas Electronix
Ltd Germany is supplying six towed sonars (ATAS) and the rest will be built in
India in the Make in India programme, to which the Navy is committed. The
WESEE staff claim risk taking, which a bureaucratic DRDO cannot do is their key
to working with software and other firms to provide the electronics, modems for
data transfer, cyber and communication security and the command and control systems
to ensure swift ‘detection of enemy to shooter’ for powerful weapons, which are
now ‘one shot kill weapons’. INS Kochi has them. The WESEE has ensured connectivity
for the Commands and Naval Headquarters via HF/VHF links and the satellite Rukmini
terminals fitted on all major warships for GSAT-7 built by Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) with UHF, Sierra, Ku and Charlie bands for encrypted net-worked
data transfers and voice talks, and TV on board ships. Currently there
are twenty seven major shipyards, eight public and nine private which have the
capability to build vessels up to 1,10,000 DWT, small in comparison with Japan,
Korea and China. DND and WESEE are currently engaged in designing a 65,000-tonne
futuristic aircraft carrier which could even have nuclear propulsion in collaboration
with US for an Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS-General Atomics US)
and eight Submersible Submarine Nuclear (SSNs) sanctioned by the Defence Acquisition
Council (DAC). The task is stupendous but the Indian Navy has buckled up to meet
the challenge, and needs the support of the nation as torch bearers in Make in
India drive. – Commodore Ranjit B Rai is author of
WARRING NUCLEAR NATIONS-INDIA AND PAKISTAN (ISBN 978-93-5158-638-0) | 
