Eye on China in Arabian Sea, India plans third Navy base in Lakshadweep
After INS Dweeprakshak in Kavaratti and INS Jatayu in Minicoy, the Indian Navy is set to get a third footprint in the Lakshadweep archipelago -- INS Bitra on Bitra Island.
The Lakshadweep Administration has initiated the process to acquire Bitra, the smallest inhabited island of the 36-island chain, for defence and strategic use.
A notification issued on July 11, 2025 by the Revenue Department under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 marks the beginning of a Social Impact Assessment (SIA).
The stated objective is the βcomplete transfer of Bitra to defence and strategic agenciesβ, citing its βstrategic location and national security relevance.β
India Today TV assessed the ground situation in Lakshadweep, where difficult air and sea connectivity has slowed development. Bitra, the smallest inhabited island, is spread over just 0.105 sq km and had 271 residents across 105 families in the 2011 Census.
It sits in the northern Lakshadweep, covering a surveillance gap between Kavaratti and Agatti.
With Minicoy in the south keeping watch over the Eight and Nine Degree Channels -- the key trade routes linking the Malacca Strait with the Gulf of Aden and Strait of Hormuz -- Bitra could give the Navy a northern anchor to monitor vital sea lanes, tackle piracy and narcotics trafficking, and keep a closer watch on growing Chinese activity in the Arabian Sea.
If implemented, Bitra will become the third defence establishment after INS Dweeprakshak and INS Jatayu, commissioned on March 6, 2024.
Defence sources maintain the base is needed to "close surveillance gaps in northern Lakshadweep and enhance operational reach" and will also bring jobs, medical and connectivity infrastructure under the Centre's dual-use model - as seen with the planned expansion of Agatti airfield and new airfield at Minicoy integrated with INS Jatayu.
Two years after PM Modi's Jan 2024 visit put Lakshadweep on the tourism map, the coral paradise is fast becoming India's western security grid.- Ends
Born in Pauri district of Uttarakhand, Manjeet Negi did his early schooling from his village school near Rishikesh and then moved to the town for secondary education. Later, he did his graduation from Hemavati Nandan Bahuguna University. In the year 2000, he did his journalism diploma from Kurukshetra University and started his career with Doordarshan News and started reporting on defence forces from the 2001 Bhuj earthquake. In his career as a defence correspondent, Negi has had the opportunity to report exclusives from world's highest battlefield Siachen Glacier in the north to the Andamans in the South and from the Rann of Kutch in the west to the Arunachal Pradesh border with China in the East.
A regular news-breaker on matters of national security and military affairs, Negi considers the coverage of he Kedarnath tragedy of 2013 as the highest point of his career. During the grave disaster at Kedarnath in June 2013, Manjeet Negi was the first and only TV reporter who walked for 55 Kms on the hilly track to reach the Kedarnath shrine. Spending his first night in the complex amidst several hundred dead bodies around him, Negi says he saw Lord Kedar in his dream. After the Kedarnath disaster, the writer got another opportunity to cover another disaster in the Nepal earthquake in 2015 for the Aaj Tak channel. During the reporting of that disaster for about 10 days, the writer got an opportunity to witness and report the large scale relief and rescue operations undertaken by the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force.
Besides reporting, he is also a skilled mountaineer. With Nehru Institute of Mountaineering and Garhwal Regiment, he has undertaken mountaineering expedition to Satopanth via Gomukh. Accompanying the Mount Manaslu mountaineering expedition of a Garhwal Regiment unit, he also reported about the expedition. He has also scaled the Dronagiri mountain near Joshimath in Uttarakhand. Manjeet Negi has also been honoured with a special award by the Union Home Minister, Shri Rajnath Singh for his reporting of Kedarnath disaster. He was awarded the best reporter award for his coverage of Nepal earthquake by India Today Group. At present, the writer has been working as Editor with Aajtak Channel of India Today Group.
