New Delhi, Nov 20 (PTI) The Indian Navy has converted some of the lessons learned during Operation Sindoor into challenges to present to the industry and start-ups for bolstering operational capabilities, a top naval officer said on Thursday.
Addressing a press conference here on the navy’s upcoming event ‘Swavlamban’, Vice Chief of Naval Staff (VCNS) Vice Admiral Sanjay Vatsayan said, based on the “success” of Autonomous Surface Vessel Matangi, an order for 10 boats has been placed.
The Indian Navy will host ‘Swavlamban 2025’ — a flagship event on innovation and indigenisation — on November 25-26 at Manekshaw Centre. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will attend a session.
Since its first edition in 2022, the event has grown into a platform where MSMEs and start-ups showcase their solutions based on challenges posed by the armed forces to meet their operational requirements.
Swavlamban 2025 is being hosted days after the Indian armed forces concluded tri-service exercise ‘Trishul’, a nearly fortnight-long exercise led by the navy, with a finale amphibious exercise off the Saurashtra Coast at Gujarat’s Porbandar on November 13.
Asked if the lessons learned during Operation Sindoor, carried out in May, will figure in the discussions at the event, the VCNS said “challenges identified” before and after Operation Sindoor will be discussed.
“What we saw during Op Sindoor, and the lessons learned, we have converted some of those into challenges,” the vice admiral said.
Swavlamban will also feature high-tech challenges that were or have been identified before the military action took place, he said.
“We have identified our requirements from use cases, from the technologies that have come up, and these have been presented as challenges to MSMEs and start-ups to come up with solutions which can be operationally deployed,” the naval officer said.
Without naming any of the challenges, he said, the list has a “large number” of items on it, and 80 stalls will be put up at the event.
The officer related some of the success stories, referring to technology or systems for which contracts have either been signed or are about to be signed.
The VCNS termed Autonomous Surface Vessel Matangi a “success story” and said it was tried during the previous edition of the event, and “met the operational requirements that we had envisaged.” According to an official, ‘Matangi’ is a fast interceptor boat, and it is the result of a challenge posed in the earlier edition of the event.
Matangi, developed by Sagar Defence Engineering, was flagged off by the defence minister during Swavlamban 2024 hosted at Bharat Mandapam here.
The VCNS also said of the challenges in the maritime domain, several of those have been identified earlier, and these were also tried during the recent tri-service exercise, such as cyber, cognitive and information warfare.
“But, drones and counter-drone systems we are proactively looking at,” he added.
(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)
