‘New Karnataka naval base won’t eat into Goa operations’

Panaji: The newly-developed naval base INS Kadamba in Karnataka, a short distance from Goa, will not make the naval bases in Goa, especially INS Hansa, redundant, a senior Indian Navy official said Saturday.

Speaking to reporters, Commodore Ravneet Singh said no military assets from INS Hansa would be moved across the border to supplement INS Kadamba.

“We would continue doing the same thing which we have been doing. There will be no shifting of assets from this base. (INS) Hansa will remain Hansa,” he said.

INS Kadamba, a massive naval project which was commissioned in 2005, was built as part of ‘Project Seabird’ which was aimed at beefing up India?s maritime defenses along the south western coastline. It is located in Karwar district of Karnataka, a few kilometers from Goa’s southern border.

INS Hansa, a major naval base, was first conceived in 1961 at Sulur, near Coimbatore and was later shifted to Goa in 1964, three years after the Indian armed forces liberated Goa.

Singh said INS Hansa was a key player as far as providing logistics to anti-piracy operations was concerned.

“IL-38 SD helps in tracking down the submarine and suspected ships in the Arabian Sea right up to African coast,” Singh said.

“INS Hansa also handles 30 to 45 civil flight arrivals every day. We have had a total of 12,440 civil flights and military 7,000 hours flying,” Singh said, adding that the Navy-run Goa airport at Dabolim, 35 kilometers from here, had the record of highest departures of any civilian flights from the country.