‘Material failure, human error’ causing naval mishaps

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 26

The Indian Navy today said the debris of the Dornier aircraft that crashed into the Arabian Sea on Tuesday has been located.

In the backdrop of frequent naval mishaps, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence — on December 22 last year — raised questions on quality of equipment/machinery, inadequate training of Navy personnel and the gradually declining level of funding which can compromise operational preparedness. It had listed out the small and big accidents in the past few years.

Summing up the causes of naval accidents, the report tabled in Parliament had said: “The committee found that in most of these (accident) cases, the reasons for mishap is either material failure or human error,” the report said.

The Parliamentary Committee interviewed senior most Navy and Ministry of Defence officers before announcing its verdict. “This implies that either the equipment and machinery acquired are substandard or there are inadequacies in training,” the committee said in its report.

It pointed to inadequate funding, saying “(lack of funding) further aggravates the condition of the Indian Navy and leads to compromises in operational preparedness”, the committee which is headed by Maj Gen BC Khanduri (retd) observed. The former Army General is an elected MP from Uttarakhand.

The Navy’s share in the Budget is declining. The share of the naval budget within the total defence budget of India fell to 15.72 per cent in 2014-15. It was 16.79 per cent during 2013-14 and 18.12 per cent in 2012-13.

This is the sixth successive year of lesser allocation under the ‘other than salary’ segment.