New Delhi: Visakhapatnam – City of Destiny – which successfully hosted the International Fleet Review (IFR) in February 2016 – is gearing up to host another International Naval event ‘MILAN 2020’ in March 2020. With about two months for the mega event, the preparations were reviewed by Vice Admiral SN Ghormade, Chief of Staff, Eastern Naval Command (ENC) on January 7.

The review meeting saw an overwhelming and positive response from the civil administrators and stakeholder organisations with participation by Dr G Srijana, Commissioner GVMC; Rajiv Kumar Meena, City Police Commissioner; A Srinivas, Secretary VMRDA; RN Hari Krishna, Chief Mechanical Engineer VPT; representatives from HSL, HPCL, IOCL, EPCL, Coromandel Fertilizers Ltd and Senior Police Officers from Special Branch, Law and Order and Traffic.

A detailed presentation to apprise the attendees of the planned activities of MILAN was conducted. Vice Admiral Ghormade has sought wholehearted support and cooperation from the City Administration, Civic Bodies, Police Department and PSUs in co-hosting the multinational naval event as was done during IFR in 2016.

The review meeting was followed by site visits to various venues by the nodal officers from the Navy and the attendees representing stakeholder organisations towards drawing out time bound action plans.

MILAN 2020 is a multilateral naval exercise aimed to enhance professional interaction between friendly foreign navies and learn from each other’s strengths and best practices in the maritime domain. The exercise with the theme ‘Synergy Across the Seas’ would provide an excellent opportunity for Operational Commanders of friendly foreign navies to interact with each other in areas of mutual interest. Of the 41 navies invited, confirmations from over 30 have been received towards their participation in MILAN 2020.