Eastern Naval Command

The Eastern Naval Command is one of the three command-level formations of the Indian Navy.^[1] It is headquartered in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.^[2] The command is responsible for the all naval forces in the Bay of Bengal and parts of the Indian Ocean and the naval establishments on the east coast of India.

Eastern Naval Command
Crest of the Eastern Naval Command
Active	1983
Country	India
Branch	Indian Navy
Type	Command
Headquarters	Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh
Commanders
FOC-in-C	Vice Admiral Rajesh Pendharkar, AVSM, VSM
FOC Eastern Fleet	Rear Admiral Susheel Menon, VSM

The Command was established in 1983.^[3] The Command is commanded by a Three Star Flag Officer of the rank of Vice Admiral with the title Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Eastern Command (FOC-in-C). Vice Admiral Rajesh Pendharkar is the current FOC-in-C ENC, who took over on 1 August 2023.

The HQ of the Eastern Naval Command at Visakhapatnam.

History

After the independence and the partition of India on 15 August 1947, the ships and personnel of the Royal Indian Navy were divided between the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The division of the ships was on the basis of two-thirds of the fleet to India, one third to Pakistan.^[4]

The Surface Fleet of the Navy was called Indian Fleet and was commanded by the Flag Officer Commanding Indian Fleet (FOCIF). Initially, the shore establishments on the eastern coast were headed by a captain in the appointment of Naval Officer-in-Charge, Vishakapatnam (NOIC).^[5] This was subsequently upgraded to the appointment of Commodore East (COMEAST), a One Star appointment. The FOCIF and COMEAST reported into the Chief of the Naval Staff. In July 1967, COMEAST was upgraded to the two-star appointment of Flag Officer, East Coast (FOEC).^[6] On 1 March 1968, the Eastern Fleet was also created. With this, the appointment of FOEC was re-designated Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Eastern Naval Command (FOC-in-C ENC). The Indian Fleet was split between the Western Fleet and the Eastern Fleet with the Fleet Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet (FOCEF) reporting into the FOC-in-C ENC.^[7] On 1 March 1971, Vice Admiral Nilakanta Krishnan took over as FOC-in-C, the first three-star officer to lead the command.^[8]

The oldest naval establishment of the Eastern Seaboard was the INS Circars, Visakhapatnam, which was identified as "an important convoy assembly point" for the Royal Indian Navy flotillas. A small Naval Base was established there on 12 December 1939 and the base was designated as HMIS Circars on 12 April 1942.^[9] Now, the base is the base depot ship of the Eastern Naval Command. It is the logistics and administrative support establishment of the Command, supporting all ships and units based in Visakhapatnam. As of 2018, the establishment supports 52 additional units with strength of 2,300 sailors and 400 officers, besides accommodating inliving sailors of Circars.^[10]

Area of responsibility

Under the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Eastern Naval Command (FOC-in-C East) is the Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet (FOCEF), Commodore Commanding Submarines (East) (COMCOS (E)), Admiral Superintendent Dockyard for Visakhapatnam, shore establishments, and five Naval Officers-in-Charge (NOICs).

The Eastern naval Command has the states of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Tamil Nadu etc., under its area of responsibility.^[11]

The FOC-in-C (East) is the submarine operating authority, under whom COMCOS (E) operates. The 11th (Sindhughosh class submarine) and 8th (Foxtrot class) Submarine Squadrons operate under COMCOS (E). INS Virbahu, a submarine base commissioned on 19 May 1971, is the alma mater of the Indian Navy submariners.

INS Jalashwa flagship of Eastern Naval Command

Organization

The Eastern Naval Command is organized as follows:^[12]

Post	Current Holder	References
Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief	Vice Admiral Rajesh Pendharkar, AVSM, VSM	[13]
Chief of Staff	Vice Admiral Sameer Saxena, AVSM, NM	[14]
Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet	Rear Admiral Susheel Menon, VSM	[15]
Flag Officer Commanding Tamil Nadu & Puducherry Naval Area	Rear Admiral Ravi Kumar Dhingra, VSM	[16]
Flag Officer Submarines	Rear Admiral Chetan C Chandegave	[17]
Admiral Superintendent Dockyard (ASD) - Visakhapatnam	Rear Admiral R. Vijay Sekhar, AVSM, NM	[18]
Commodore Commanding Submarines (East)	Commodore L. M. Fernandes	[19]

Naval bases

Admiral DK Joshi, then Chief of the Naval Staff, receiving a guard of honour during a visit to the Eastern Naval Command in November 2013

The headquarters in Visakhapatnam, is also a strategically important dockyard for two nuclear-powered submarines of the Arihant-class submarine. Due to congestion and heavy shipping traffic, a new 20 square km base INS Varsha is being developed for exclusive naval use about 50 km south of Visakhapatnam.

The Eastern Navy fleet is distributed among its bases at Paradip, Tuticorin, Kakinada and Chennai on the east coast, and in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.^[11] The Navy has opened its latest naval air base, INS Baaz, at the southernmost tip of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to secure the strategically important Straits of Malacca, and another naval air station in Kolkata to base an unmanned aerial vehicle squadron.^[20][21]

The ex-INS Vikrant as a museum ship in Mumbai.

INS Vikrant during its sea trials

Base	City	State/Territory	Role
INS Circars	Visakhapatnam	Andhra Pradesh	Logistics and Administrative support
INS Dega			Naval Air Station
INS Virbahu			Submarine base
INS Satavahana			Submarine Training Base of the Indian Navy
INHS Kalyani			Naval Hospital
INS Kalinga			Naval Missile Depot
INS Eksila			Marine gas turbine maintenance
INS Karna[22]			MARCOS Base
INS Varsha (Under Construction)	Rambilli		Future submarine base for the ENC
INS Adyar	Chennai	Tamil Nadu	Logistics and Maintenance support
NAE Chennai			Naval Air Enclave at Chennai International Airport
INS Parundu	Uchipuli		Naval Air Station
INS Rajali	Arakkonam		Naval Air Station
INS Kattabomman	Tirunelveli		Submarine VLF facility
INS Tuticorin	Tuticorin		Logistics support
INS Netaji Subhash	Kolkata	West Bengal	Logistics and Administrative support
INS Paradip (Under Construction)[23]	Paradip	Odisha	Forward Operating Base
INS Bhubaneswar (Under Construction)	Bhubaneswar		Naval Air Enclave

Capabilities

In 2005, Eastern Naval Command was home to 30 warships. INS Jalashwa is the flagship of Eastern Fleet and provides amphibious capabilities to the Indian Navy in the Bay of Bengal. Eastern Fleet is equipped with submarine pens and maintenance dockyards. The Amphibious Task Group of Eastern Naval Fleet has INS Jalashwa (LPD). It also includes five Rajput-class destroyers, four Kora-class corvettes, three Godavari-class frigates, three Shivalik-class frigates, Sindhughosh-class submarines and the Akula-class submarine INS Chakra. Naval aviation is provided by Westland Sea King helicopters. Apart from these, a number of smaller vessels such as fast attack craft made the total fleet strength of the command 52 vessels in 2012.

Future

Until 1997, INS Vikrant (1961) was the flagship of Eastern Fleet. After her de-commissioning in 1997, the Eastern Fleet has been without an aircraft carrier.^[20][24] Its aircraft carrier capability will get restored after first indigenously built aircraft carrier INS Vikrant (2013) joins the Eastern Fleet by 2023 after completing extensive sea trials and is likely to based in Vishakapatnam.^[25][26]

List of commanders

S.No	Name	Assumed office	Left office	Notes	References
Naval Officer-in-Charge, Visakhapatnam (NOIC Visakhapatnam)
1	Captain Geoffrey Gowlland	1948	1951	Seconded from the Royal Navy	[27]
2	Captain Bhaskar Sadashiv Soman	December 1951	2 December 1953	Later served as Chief of the Naval Staff	[5][28]
3	Captain Reginald Sawhny	2 December 1953	June 1954		[5]
4	Captain R. S. David	June 1954			[29][30]
Commodore, East Coast (COMEAST)
1	Commodore M. K. Heble	12 June 1958	5 February 1960		[31]
2	Commodore G. S. Kapoor	5 February 1960	June 1962		[32][33]
3	Commodore J. S. Mehra	14 June 1962	June 1965		[34][35]
4	Commodore Douglas St. John Cameron	June 1965	31 May 1967		[36]
Flag Officer, East Coast (FOEC)
1	Rear Admiral Kesavapillai Ramakrishnan Nair	July 1967	1 March 1968		[6]
Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Eastern Naval Command (FOC-in-C ENC)
1	Rear Admiral Kesavapillai Ramakrishnan Nair PVSM	1 March 1968	1 March 1971		[37]
2	Vice Admiral Nilakanta Krishnan PVSM, DSC	1 March 1971	March 1973		[37]
3	Vice Admiral K. L. Kulkarni PVSM	March 1973	1 April 1976		[38][39][40]
4	Vice Admiral Swaraj Parkash PVSM, MVC, AVSM	1 April 1976	1 March 1977		[41]
5	Vice Admiral S. H. Sarma PVSM	1 March 1977	2 February 1978		[42]
6	Vice Admiral M. R. Schunker PVSM, AVSM	2 February 1978	24 March 1980		[43][44]
7	Vice Admiral Mihir K. Roy PVSM, AVSM	24 March 1980	31 March 1984		[45][46]
8	Vice Admiral Jayant Ganpat Nadkarni PVSM, AVSM, NM, VSM	8 April 1984	28 February 1986	Later served as Chief of the Naval Staff	[47][48]
9	Vice Admiral S. C. Chopra PVSM, AVSM, NM	28 February 1986	27 February 1989		[49]
10	Vice Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas PVSM, AVSM, VrC, VSM	27 February 1989	30 November 1990	Later served as Chief of the Naval Staff	[50]
11	Vice Admiral Vijai Singh Shekhawat PVSM, AVSM, VrC	31 December 1990	31 October 1992	Later served as Chief of the Naval Staff	[51]
12	Vice Admiral B. Guha PVSM, AVSM	10 November 1992	31 May 1995		[52]
13	Vice Admiral P. S. Das PVSM, UYSM, VSM	31 May 1995	27 February 1998		[53]
14	Vice Admiral Vinod Pasricha PVSM, AVSM, NM	28 February 1998	28 February 2001		[54][55]
15	Vice Admiral John Colin De Silva PVSM, AVSM	1 March 2001	1 January 2002		[55]
16	Vice Admiral Raman Puri PVSM, AVSM, VSM	15 January 2002	30 September 2003		[56][57]
17	Vice Admiral O. P. Bansal PVSM, AVSM, VSM	1 October 2003	30 September 2005		[57][58][56]
18	Vice Admiral Sureesh Mehta PVSM, AVSM	1 October 2005	31 October 2006	Later served as Chief of the Naval Staff	[59][60]
19	Vice Admiral Arun Kumar Singh PVSM, AVSM, NM	1 November 2006	31 March 2007
20	Vice Admiral Raman Prem Suthan PVSM, AVSM, VSM	1 April 2007	30 March 2008	Later served as Vice Chief of the Naval Staff	[61][62]
21	Vice Admiral Nirmal Kumar Verma PVSM, AVSM	1 April 2008	31 August 2009	Later served as Chief of the Naval Staff	[63]
22	Vice Admiral Anup Singh PVSM, AVSM, NM	1 September 2009	31 October 2011		[64]
23	Vice Admiral Anil Chopra PVSM, AVSM	1 November 2011	2014	Later served as FOC-in-C Western Naval Command	[65][66][67]
24	Vice Admiral Satish Soni PVSM, AVSM, NM	16 June 2014	29 February 2016		[68][69]
25	Vice Admiral Harish Bisht PVSM, AVSM	1 March 2016	30 October 2017		[70]
26	Vice Admiral Karambir Singh PVSM, AVSM	31 October 2017	30 May 2019	Later served as Chief of the Naval Staff	[71]
27	Vice Admiral Atul Kumar Jain PVSM, AVSM, VSM	1 June 2019	28 February 2021		[72]
28	Vice Admiral Ajendra Bahadur Singh PVSM, AVSM, VSM	28 February 2021	28 November 2021	Later served as FOC-in-C Western Naval Command	[73][74]
29	Vice Admiral Biswajit Dasgupta PVSM, AVSM, YSM, VSM	1 December 2021	31 July 2023		[75]
30	Vice Admiral Rajesh Pendharkar AVSM, VSM	1 August 2023	Incumbent

See also

• Southern Naval Command
• Western Naval Command