Second phase of Sea Bird to take off soon

The Indian Navy is all set to start work on second phase of Project Sea Bird. The Union government has cleared the proposal and necessary formalities have been completed.

The second phase of the project would include an airport at Alageri village near Ankola with the defence department’s permission. The Navy requires more land to expand the airport for civilian purpose and is waiting for the state government to acquire more land for the construction of a runway, said Commodore Rajiv Jaiswal of Kadamba Naval Air Base, Karwar.

For the second phase of the Seabird Project, no additional land is required and the Navy is in possession of enough land to construct and develop the infrastructure, he said. The second phase would include the dockyard, accommodation for the staff, air base, submarines and helicopters, he said. There are training facilities at the dockyard for the naval cadets presently, he said. It would help the cadets to acquire more skill and productivity, Jaiswal said.

Jaiswal said that the second phase would start once the funds were allotted. Totally 55 per cent of Kannadigas work in the civilian branch of the Navy at Kadamba base and of them 21 per cent are from the project affected families and 29 per cent are from Karwar. Around 9 per cent employees are from rest of Karnataka, he said. Even in non-civilian branches, considerable number of employees hail from Karnataka, he said.

He said the construction of more jetties in the second phase would result in sea erosion in the areas outside the naval base.

Navy would hold an interaction with the people in the surrounding gram panchayat and he would visit some schools in the area so that Navy can help the people and schools in possible way, he said.