The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : INS Dronacharya gets affiliated to Artillery School in Kochi

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INS Dronacharya gets affiliated to Artillery School in Kochi

Staff Reporter

Two training units being affiliated for the first time

Kochi: In a ceremony marked by poise and finesse, INS Dronacharya, Navy’s premier gunnery and missile weapons establishment at Fort Kochi, was affiliated to the School of Artillery, Deolali, on Saturday.

“Although affiliation between operational units of the Indian armed forces has taken place in the past, it is for the first time that two training units have been affiliated,” said Vice-Admiral Sunil K. Damle, Commander-in-Chief of the Southern Naval Command. The charter of affiliation was signed between Vice-Admiral Damle and Lieutenant-General I. J. Koshy, Director General of the Artillery Corps, and Lieutenant-General B.S. Pawar, commandant of the School of Artillery, and Captain Sanjiv Issar, Commanding Officer of INS Dronacharya. This was followed by exchange of mementos, flags and insignia between Gen. Pawar and Capt. Issar.

“The spirit has joint operations has always been there,” said Vice-Admiral Damle recalling his first meeting with Gen. Pawar in the cockpit of an Indian Air Force aircraft way back in 1976.

“It is jointly that we will fight all future battles. Now there is an Integrated Defence Headquarters, a tri-service command in the Andamans besides joint schools and units,” he said. The affiliation will foster greater understanding of each other’s operational concepts and training methodology and will facilitate sharing of infrastructure and exchange of faculty members between the two arms.

‘Great leaps’

The quick reaction surface-to-air missile (SAM) Trishul was a technology demonstrator and was not meant for a platform, said Commander-in-Chief of Southern Naval Command Vice-Admiral Sunil K. Damle.

He was addressing reporters on Saturday after the naval gunnery school here signed a charter of affiliation with the School of Artillery in Deolali.

“Trishul was not meant to replace the Russian Shtil; rather, it was developed as a parallel. However, the country has taken great leaps in missile development,” he said citing the success of Brahmos supersonic cruise missile as a case in point.

Incidentally, India had officially closed the Trishul programme early this year. In 1998, INS Dronacharya was the test site for the naval version of Trishul.

Asked if the Navy was worried about the Chinese “string of pearls” strategy — strong Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean region, especially in Pakistan’s Gwadar port and Sri Lanka’s Hambantota — he said there was no evidence of any Chinese military presence in the Indian Ocean region.

“But we are aware that ports like Gwadar could be used for purposes against us in exigencies,” he said, adding that India would also take friends’ help to guard against that.

He also said that the police and the Coast Guard were ever vigilant against the peninsular coast being used by troublesome elements.

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