Indian Navy deploys western fleet ships on a goodwill visit

NEW DELHI - The Indian Navy has deployed four Indian warships INS Mysore, Tabar, Ganga and Aditya on a goodwill visit to several maritime nations of Africa and South Indian Ocean.

The warships will engage with several navies during this visit.

Wide-ranging professional discussions and a number of sports and social engagements will take place with the host navies whilst in harbour, and will thereafter be followed up with naval exercises at sea.

“The warships will be exercising with the navies/Coast Guard of Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Seychelles and Mauritius besides making port calls at Reunion and Mozambique. The visit will also include the biennial naval exercise ‘IBSAMAR’ between the navies of India, Brazil and South Africa,” said a Defence Ministry release.

The exercises are meant to promote greater interoperability and foster synergy between the Indian Navy and other participating navies.

The Indian Navy has already been conducting formalized exercises annually with several foreign navies since the past several years, such as the ‘VARUNA’ series with the French Navy, the ‘INDRA’ series with the Russian Navy and the ‘KONKAN’ series with the Royal Navy (UK).

The visiting ships are part of the Indian Navy’s Western Fleet under the Western Naval Command and are based at Mumbai.

The task group is headed by Rear Admiral RK Pattanaik, the Flag Officer Commanding Western Fleet, who is flying his flag on the guided missile destroyer, INS Mysore.ver the last few decades, India has made substantial advances in terms of designing and building warships indigenously and the visiting ships are testimony to these capabilities.

Here, three of the four ships have been designed by the ‘Design Bureau’ of the Indian Navy and constructed at public sector shipyards, namely, the Mazagon Dockyard Limited (Mumbai) and the Garden Reach Ship Builders and Engineers Limited (Kolkata).

The destroyer INS Mysore and the frigates INS Tabar and INS Ganga are equipped with state-of-the-art weapons and sensors, while the replenishment ship INS Aditya is capable of sustaining the warships for prolonged durations at sea.

Indian Naval assets have been increasingly involved in the region’s maritime issues, such as Hydrographic survey, Search and Rescue, anti-piracy and also in providing humanitarian assistance.

The visit also seeks to demonstrate the Indian Navy’s ‘blue water’ capability to deploy, operate and sustain a maritime Task Force well away from home for an extended duration. (ANI)