Navy Info Fusion Centre soon to improve maritime security

The IONS, which was launched in 2008, seeks to increase maritime cooperation among the navies of the IOR.

KOCHI: The Indian Navy is all set to open an international Information Fusion Centre (IFC) for Indian Ocean Region (IOR) aiming to improve maritime security in the region, said Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba here on Tuesday.

The centre will be a separate platform for the members of the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS), he said, while interacting with reporters on the sidelines of the IONS 10th anniversary seminar at the Lulu Bolgatty International Convention Centre in Kochi.

“We have the approval from the Government of India to get in touch with a number of nations on technical agreement on exchanging information on white-shipping. We have signed agreements with 18 countries and operationalised 11 of them, where online information exchange on white-shipping has started. All this is put together in the Navy’s Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC) at Gurugram. To start with, we are going to set up the IFC as an adjunct to the IMAC where we will share information virtually with like-minded countries and once we have infrastructure in place we will invite other countries” Lanba said.

The IONS, which was launched in 2008, seeks to increase maritime cooperation among the navies of the IOR. White-shipping refers to commercial shipping. Dismissing the allegations that the Navy has not been responsive in helping the fishermen in distress during the Cyclone Ockhi and the mid-sea collision in which five people died and seven went missing, the Navy Chief said the Navy has done its best.

“During Ockhi, the Navy and the Coast Guard picked up hundreds of fishermen under severe weather conditions. We went out of the way and continued search and rescue operations for more than 40 days. In the case of mid-sea collision, we conducted search for days together. We deployed underwater survey vessels to find the sunken boat, but could not find it. We presume the missing fishermen were caught in the sunken boat,” he said.

Responding to a question on initiatives taken by India to overcome growing Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean, Lanba said a mission-based deployment of Indian Naval ships has been undertaken in “our areas of interests”.

Prominent mission-based ship deployments have been made in the Gulf of Aden and other areas including Andaman Sea, Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and southern and central parts of the Indian Ocean. Besides this, patrolling by aircraft is also being carried out regularly, he said.“We monitor the movement of all ships including PLA and Chinese Navy,” Lanba said.