INS Kadamba (Naval Base Karwar)

INS Kadamba, also designated Naval Base Karwar, is an Indian Navy base on the Arabian Sea coast at Karwar, Karnataka. It falls under the Western Naval Command, with the resident commander's post upgraded from Commanding Officer to Flag Officer Commanding (Karwar), answering to the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Naval Command. Captain V S Guru assumed command in June 2024. The base was raised to relieve congestion at Mumbai and to provide the western seaboard with a dedicated naval harbour clear of commercial shipping traffic, with depth and approach geometry suited to aircraft carriers.

Kadamba homeports both Indian Navy aircraft carriers, INS Vikramaditya, which arrived in January 2014, and INS Vikrant, first berthed in May 2023. It also berths destroyers, frigates, offshore patrol vessels, survey ships and mine countermeasures vessels; the Offshore Patrol Vessels Pier commissioned in April 2024 provides shore power, potable and chilled water and mobile crane support for these classes. Refit piers entered service in April 2025. A Stage-II Recruitment Centre, the tenth in the Navy, opened on 12 November 2025.

The installation occupies about 11,200 acres along 26 km of coastline. The harbour is enclosed by northern and southern breakwaters and a spur running west from Anjadip Island, with depths of 10 to 12 m and a dredged approach channel. The Naval Ship Repair Yard (Karwar) operates India's first shiplift and ship transfer system, a 10,000-tonne, 175 m by 28 m unit commissioned on 8 November 2006, able to dock all Indian Navy ship and submarine classes except aircraft carriers and replenishment oilers, and usable as a wet berthing station. Cleaning and dry berths adjoin the yard. Naval armament and missiles are held at INS Vajrakosh, a separate depot in the Karwar area. INHS Patanjali provides hospital support, and residential townships east of Manzil Creek and at Amadalli house officers, sailors and defence civilians.

The base was conceived in the early 1980s under Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral O S Dawson and sanctioned in 1985 as Project Seabird, with the foundation stone laid in October 1986. Funding shortfalls stalled work until construction began in 1999, and INS Kadamba was commissioned on 31 May 2005 as India's first purpose-built naval base. Phase I concluded in 2011; Phase IIA, sanctioned in December 2012, began in 2017 and continues.