AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 7 – Panorama CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 295 of 332 19 INS Rajali’s Glorious 25 years Cmde R S Vasan Genre: Naval Institution y all counts, 2017 would indeed be a land mark year for so many institutions and individuals. This includes the Centenary year of Late Adm SN Kohli, fifty glorious years of the submarine arm, Platinum jubilee of Valsura, Diamond Jubilee of SFNA and of course the Silver Jubilee of Rajali of which I had the honour of being the commissioning Commanding Officer. The Senior Aviators with vision and the leadership in Delhi need to be complemented for embarking on this prestigious strategic project on the East Coast in the late 80s. It is not that there were no earlier efforts to rejuvenate this former Air Force base that provided logistic support during the world war. Over decades of disuse, the runway was battered and served as drying area for paddy grown from the lake nearby. Most of the land was also encroached and also villages had come up around the base. It is a coincidence that during the same period during world war the Royal Air Force operated from Arakkonam, the Royal Navy operated from Tambaram. Today it is exactly the other way round with Rajali with the Navy and the Tambaram Station with the IAF. Coming back to the genesis, the induction of TU 142 the long range MR ASW aircraft in the 80s while adding a phenomenal punch to the Navy was restricted in its ability to take off with full weight from Dabolim due to the runway length. INS Hansa was already getting congested with the maintenance, logistic and support facilities stretched to the limit due to the mix of aircraft with diverse requirement of providing fleet support. While there were many Board proceedings for creation of a new air station at Arakkonam, most of the credit for taking this forward should go to Admiral Pasricha who took it up on himself to ensure that this moved on fast track. Rajali as a project set unparalleled precedents and the most important one was the creation of the Project Management Board (PMB) headed by AS (Navy). Along with the DCNS, ACNS (Air) DNAS, Finance and other representatives of the MES, this was a formidable combination that B