Parwinder Sandhu,
New Delhi, December 2 (UNI) With India’s third indigenous nuclear ballistic missile submarine INS Aridhaman now in the final stages of trials, the Indian Navy is poised to commission the strategic platform shortly, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi said in the national capital on Tuesday.
Belonging to the trio of Arihant-class nuclear ballistic submarines, the platform features an expanded missile payload, enabling it to carry more long-range nuclear missiles than the INS Arighaat, which was commissioned in August 2024.
Addressing the annual press conference ahead of the Navy Day celebrations scheduled to take place on Wednesday, the CNS said that the Navy’s first four Rafale aircraft are planned for arrival in 2029.
The bilateral agreement for 26 of these aircraft carrier-ready jets was finalised with France in April, and deliveries are set to commence in five years from the signing. The package includes armaments, spares and supporting equipment, and the fighters will be stationed aboard INS Vikrant.
“We have signed contracts for 83 capital cases worth around Rs 84,000 crore. We hope to get the first set of four Rafale for the Indian Navy by 2029,” the Navy chief said.
He said Operation Sindoor was still in progress and stressed that the Indian Navy’s proactive posture, supported by the presence of frontline ships, had prevented Pakistan from venturing out, keeping its fleet docked. “The aggressive posturing and immediate action during Op Sindoor, of deployment of the carrier battle group forced the Pakistan Navy to remain close to their ports or near the Makran coast. The operation remains ongoing and therefore many details cannot be disclosed publicly,” he said.
“There was an increase in insurance premiums for ships going to Pakistan ports, which led to a reduction in the number of merchant ships willing to take the risk,” he said adding “for the last seven months we have continued high tempo operations in the Northern Arabian Sea.”
The CNS also spoke about undertaking exercises with other countries. “We have conducted 21 bilateral, 9 multilateral, and 34 maritime partnership exercises, 5 corvette deployments, and 13 joint EZT approaches since the last Navy Day,” he said.
“I also want to highlight three maiden initiatives in the last year… Indian Ocean Ship Sagar was a maiden initiative by the Navy wherein INS Sunayna IOS SAGAR was flagged off on the 5th of April from Karwar by our defence minister and embarked 44 crews from nine IOR nations’ navies and Coast Guard and stayed for over a month, visiting five ports and drew great appreciation from all the participating countries as also whenever she made a port call. All that is there in the open domain,” Admiral Tripathi said.
“The second initiative we did was Africa-India Key Maritime Engagement, which also means unity in Sanskrit. where we partnered with 9 African countries and assembled in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Our defence minister was present there along with the defence minister of Tanzania, and we had great camaraderie and an exchange of best practices among 9 African countries,” he added.
Admiral Tripathi said the Navy has positioned 40 major warships to secure vital sea routes and protect cargo worth about USD 5.6 billion. He highlighted that Indian naval teams have captured 52 pirates in recent missions and noted that since 2008, the Navy has kept an unbroken deployment in the Gulf of Aden, sending out 138 ships that have provided safe passage to nearly 7,800 merchant vessels. At present, he said, 40 ships are involved in counter-piracy operations, and the force has rescued 520 people at sea over the past year.
