New Delhi: India‘s navy has decided to create a vendor base in the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands on its eastern sea board to enable support services for warship maintenance at the naval base there.

The decision was taken at the Indian Navy‘s Conference for Mid-Year Refit Review (MYRR) and Mid-Year Infrastructure Review (MYIR) held at the Naval Headquarters of Eastern Naval Command (ENC) in Visakhapatnam on Sep. 24 and 25.

The conference was inaugurated by ENC Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Vice Admiral Ajendra Bahadur Singh and chaired by Indian Navy’s Chief of Material Vice Admiral Sandeep Naithani, according to an Indian Navy statement today.

The meet was held to assess the progress of refits of warships and submarines, and related infrastructure projects. The conference was attended by a high-level delegation from the Naval Headquarters, the ENC, the tri-service Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC), Naval Dockyards, Repair Yards and Material Organisations from Visakhapatnam and Port Blair.

Vice Admiral Ajendra Bahadur Singh, in his inaugural address, said the efforts of the technical fraternity towards ensuring a high standard of maintenance and readiness of Indian Navy platforms and emphasised on exploring new technology tools for maintenance, upskilling of yard workers to retain core expertise and optimisation of infrastructure costs was laudable.

Vice Admiral Sandeep Naithani, in his address to the forum, emphasised the need to bolster public-private partnership in the defence sector and focus on indigenisation. Deliberations upon the refit plans for warships based at ENC and ANC, discussions on the existing maintenance policies and review of infrastructure augmentation for meeting the growing requirements of the navy were the main agenda for the review.

The Chief of Materiel also impressed upon identifying and creating a vendor base at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in order to support ships in the islands towards extending our reach towards the East.

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