Slowdown an opportunity for Indian shipbuilders: Navy chief

Amidst efforts being made to increase indigenisation of defence equipment, Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral D K Joshi today said the global economic slowdown has opened opportunities for India's defence ship-building yards.
Stating that the recession has lead to shutdown of many companies and the surplus capacities were being shifted to emerging economies like India, he said "We need to exploit this to our advantage. The ultimate test would be the ability to export our product."
He was speaking at the launch of the third Anti Submarine Warfare Corvette, a frontline warship built by Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers for the Indian Navy.

Admiral Joshi said that out of 42 orders given by the navy, 40 were being built indigenously in India by public or private sector enterprises.
"The ship being launched today has yet another technological landmark, being the first in the country built with composite infrastructure," he said.
GRSE is constructing four ships under project P28. This was the third one, designed indigenously by the directorate of naval design.

"Today Indian Navy and Coast Guard have huge requirement of ships and the same are required to be produced without any time and cost overrun. Timely delivery of quality ships is the need of the hour. Modern shipbuilding technology and tools must be adopted to achieve this objective," Joshi said.

He said the shipyard must also have an effective mechanism for competition from newly developed private shipyards which would try to bag orders and must be accepted as a challenge.
The shipyards have to concentrate on implementation of strong quality assurance practices, development of reliable and proven vendors and most importantly training of its human resources to the lowest rank, Joshi said.