New Delhi, August 31: The country gets a new chief of naval staff on Monday with the retirement of the incumbent, Admiral Sureesh Mehta. The new man in office, Admiral Nirmal Kumar Verma, has his work cut out from the word go.
Admiral Verma, who has spent almost 40 years in service, commanded a variety of warships including the INS Viraat aircraft carrier. Destiny and timing chose him to be the navy’s prestigious eastern commander allowing him to oversee the launch of India’s first nuclear submarine in July.
Admiral Mehta, by his own admission, leaves a good deal of unfinished business for the new chief. The onus is now on the new admiral to take up India’s maritime and coastal security on a footing like never before.
The new navy chief won’t have a chance to breathe. There’s urgent, critical work that needs his attention, work that has everything to do with India’s security. Here are some of the immediate items on the new chief’s table.
Challenges ahead
First off, the new chief will need to ensure that all lessons learnt from the 26/11 terror attacks are absorbed meaningfully into his war fighting formations and fleet units across the board.
With the navy now the nodal agency in charge of maritime security, the real test now rests on the shoulders of the new chief. He will need to push to proverbial boat out far more than any of his predecessors. Such is the present threat scenario.
Alarm bells have already gone off about India’s rapidly depleting submarine strength. With China and Pakistan snooping around the Indian Ocean with impunity, Admiral Verma will have to work the impossible and get India’s submarine strength back on track.
Starting with the Admiral Gorshkov fiasco to delayed construction of indigenous warships, Admiral Verma has grave bureaucratic entanglements to cut through to ensure his fleet levels do not get eroded.
Finally, with China’s maritime equation getting a lot stronger, the Navy chief will have to quickly find ways to win the hearts of Indian Ocean countries, or lose them forever to the marauding maritime dragon.
—Agencies