New naval base to come up in Lakshadweep, Army plans new Corps for China border

New Delhi: With strategic priorities changing, India will soon have two new military formations as the Indian Navy is slated to open a new base, INS Jatayu, in Lakshadweep while the Indian Army plans to come up with a new Corps, headquartered at Bareilly, to take care of the middle sector along the disputed Sino-Indian boundary.

Likely to be in operation from next month, the new naval base will allow the Indian Navy to deploy some of its assets in the Arabian Sea islands, keeping a close watch on the traffic passing through the nine-degree channel, a crucial maritime route through which billions of dollars' worth of commercial trade transits.

The army plan of converting its static formation Headquarters Uttar Bharat into a new corps under the Central Command, however, might take some more time as the proposal was yet to be taken up with the Defence Ministry, sources said.

As per the army plan the new corps may be housing up to three divisions, each comprising 15,000-18,000 troops besides the elements of all arms and services such as artillery, engineering, aviation and logistics.

The process of raising a new corps would involve combatising the Central Command, which is largely administrative and training oriented at the moment, sources said.

With the Line of Actual Control between India and China turning hot for the last four years, the HQ-UB was given additional force by bringing three Brigades under its command. Also Dehradun-based 14 Division was brought under the HQ-UB for operational needs.

However, since all the arrangements were temporary in nature, the army now plans to formalise the structure by raising a new corps – tentatively named 18 Corps – that will look after the middle portion of the LAC flanked by the areas under Leh-based 14 Corps (western sector) and Sukhna-based 33 Corps (eastern sector).

The new naval base at the Minicoy island comes at a time when the relations between India and Maldives have hit a low, with the new President Mohammed Muizzu asking New Delhi to remove all military personnel from Maldives, besides courting China, much to the discomfort of the Narendra Modi government.

India now plans to build a new airstrip at Minicoy besides upgrading the one at Agatti so that maritime surveillance aircraft can operate from these bases.