Tuesday, August 8 2006 14:05 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Maintaining that the 'challenge' lies in India becoming a maritime power, Indian Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash has promised a fully balanced, technologically fighting fit force in the next decade.

"Maintaining that we are back on track on the submarine front and in a few years time would be back to the desired levels on the naval air operations front as well", he said.

"With fantastic support by the indigenous shipbuilding infrastructure and other acquisitions, within the next 10 years, the Indian Navy would be a fully-balanced, technologically fighting fit, all-purpose maritime force to be reckoned with," he said. Noting that the protection of vital trade routes and India's future economic and energy interests would become the key components of naval operations in the years to come, Prakash says, "The challenge, therefore, lies in India becoming a maritime power. No one can stop India from becoming a maritime power.

"Though our maritime interests are now all over, anything that happens between the east coast of Africa and the Malacca Straits is of immediate concern to India. We have the business to know what is happening in this part of the Indian Ocean. So, this is the immediate footprint of the Indian Navy," he maintains.

In this context, he notes that the navy is not Pakistan or China-centric but looks 'beyond'.

"All our maritime strategies, plans and growth take into account the matrix of economic interests and military threats. All that the force is planning is done keeping in view the bigger role of the country in world affairs in the 21st century and safeguarding all the vital interests of India," he said.

"There's total consensus on this issue and we are not going back from this approach to Indian maritime strategies or planning. China and Pakistan are only a small part of it, nothing more," Prakash contends.