Project Seabird

Facts for Prelims

Project Seabird

News: Recently, The Defence Minister inaugurated th infrastructure projects at the Indian Navy’s Karwar base under Project ‘Seabird.’

About:
• Project Seabird is an ambitious naval infrastructure project that involves the establishment of a naval base at Karwar, Karnataka, on India’s west coast.
• The project was approved in 1999 following the Pokhran-II event, under the supervision of the then Union Defence Minister George Fernandes.
• The naval base, now named INS Kadamba, was commissioned in 2005. The base is located in the Binaga Bay between the rugged hills of the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea at Karwar in Karnataka. It is very close to the world’s busiest shipping route between the Persian Gulf and east Asia but is completely out of range of most strike aircraft from neighboring countries.
• The base also has the country’s first sealift facility, a unique “shiplift” and transfer system for docking and undocking ships and submarines. The Navy’s aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya is based at Karwar.