Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral RK Dhowan said on Monday that the Navy had put in place the safety and audit machinery and was following all the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), ahead of the completion of the ongoing Board of Inquiry into a recent spate of major mishaps involving the Navy vessels.
Talking to mediapersons on his maiden visit to the Western Naval Command’s headquarters here, Admiral Dhowan said: “The incidents have been analysed thoroughly at every level. We have put a safety audit organisation in place. We have reiterated to the organisation to see that all standing operating procedures are followed because Navy is a highly professional service”.
Alluding to the safety concerns expressed in various quarters in the wake of a spate of Naval mishaps in recent months, Admiral Dhowan said: “We have ensured that the measures that need to be taken to ensure the safety standards are in place even before the board of inquiry has been completed”.
Admiral Dhowan said the Navy would leave no stone unturned to implement all the recommendations to be made by the board of inquiry as part of its ongoing probe. “We would put those measures in place throughout the Navy” he said.
There have been at least two major submarine mishaps off the Mumbai coast in recent months and in all ten such mishaps involving an Indian Navy warship since August last year.
Hours after two Naval officers died on board its submarine INS Sindhuratna off Mumbai coast February 26 this year, the then Navy Chief Admiral D K Joshi had — it may be recalled — resigned from his post, after taking “moral responsibility” for a spate of accidents involving the naval warships in the recent months.
The last major disaster had struck INS Sindhurakshak at 0010 hours of August 14, 2013 when a low-intensity explosion rocked the vessel, followed by two major simultaneous explosions that in turn sparked a huge fire inside the diesel-electric submarine, trapping all 18 on-duty sailors. All the 18 Navy personnel were killed in the mishap. Earlier in the morning, Admiral Dhowan — who has replaced Joshi as the chief of Naval staff — inspected an impressive ceremonial parade conducted at INS Shikra here.
Underscoring the need for recognising the 21st century as ‘the century of the seas’, Admiral Dhowan appreciated the Western Naval Command (WNC) for maintaining a high tempo of operations including TROPEX - 14, operationalisation of INS Vikramaditya and optimal exploitation of Rukmani- Navy’s Communication satellite, which gives a tremendous boost and acts as a force multiplier to the ‘Network Centric Operations (NCO)’.