NEW DELHI, Mar 16: India is set to commission INS Dhruv to track satellites, strategic missiles and map the Indian Ocean bed later this year to play a key role in India’s anti-ballistic missiles capability in view of China’s rapidly expanding naval power.
Official sources said the 15,000-tonne ship, part of a classified project, will not only create maritime domain awareness for India in the Indian Ocean but also act as an early warning system for adversary missiles headed towards Indian cities and military establishments. “Final checks are going on the vessel at Vizag before the commissioning, which is expected in the first half of 2021 but neither the date nor the month is decided,” said a senior official.
INS Dhruv has been developed with the help of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Navy with India’s Strategic Force Command and National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) as main intelligence consumers. The indigenously-developed surveillance ship has been built by Hindustan Shipyard Ltd at its Visakhapatnam facility under the “Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan” initiative.
INS Dhruv is equipped with the active electronically scanned array radars, or AESA, considered a game-changer in radar technology, and can scan various spectrums to monitor satellites of adversaries that are watching over India. It can also, as one official in South Block put it, understand the range and true missile capability of adversary nations that it finds in the Indo-Pacific.
Once the vessel is commissioned, India will be the only country outside the P-5 – the US, the UK, China, Russia and France – to have this capability
Officials said INS Dhruv will act as a major force multiplier to India’s ocean surveillance capabilities. The Indian Navy already monitors the region from the Gulf of Aden to all the ingress routes from the South China Sea with long-range unmanned aerial vehicles, surveillance aircraft and Boeing P8I anti-submarine warfare.
INS Dhruv will help Indian Navy plan better offensive operations in all three dimensions — sub-surface, surface and aerial. Strengthening the Indian Navy’s capabilities is key to countering China’s influence in the Indian Ocean given how Beijing’s sea doctrine has taken priority over its land forces. Experts believe the Indo-Pacific will be the front-line of the future as Chinese navy’s nuclear submarines try to avoid detection before crossing the first island chain in the South China Sea.
(Manas Dasgupta)