It also said the Indian navy, besides constructing or buying ships, submarines and aircraft, was also building ties with countries in the region to expand its bluewater reach in the Indian Ocean.

"The Indian Ocean is now the highway along which over a quarter of the world's trade and energy requirements move," Indian Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash told a news conference in New Delhi.

"The Asia-Pacific region holds immense promise for political, economic and military cooperation and the vital role maritime forces play in this regard makes the Indian Navy a key component of the nation's foreign policy." The 137-ship navy played an international role during last December's tsunami last December when New Delhi deployed its warships to help devastated Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

Analysts saw the move as a bid by India, which rejected Western bilateral offers of help during the tsunami, to project itself as a regional power with off-shore military strength.

"It became our defining moment as people could perceive the speed with we could react (to the tsumani)," Prakash said of the operation to help victims in two foreign countries as well as in India's far-flung Andamans archipelago.

"The exercises we undertook with various navies in the past year underline the theme that we have reached out far into the Indian Ocean region," he added.

The navy has already handed out contracts for construction of 27 vessels to state-owned ship-builders and has embarked on its grandest mission to indigenously build an aircraft carrier, Prakash said.

"We're reducing dependence on foreign suppliers to cut down revenue drain and uncertainties in supplies," he said, adding that a recent 2.1 billion-dollar deal to acquire six French Scorpene submarines would enhance naval strength.

"There are 36 more ships on the cards and I don't think there is any navy in the world which currently has such a large project in hand," he said.

"India aspires to a certain position in the world and so we must have a navy commensurate to our needs," he said, adding New Delhi has asked Russia, its largest military supplier, to provide three latest destroyer-class warships.

Senior military officials said the navy was also shopping for 30 long-range helicopters to replace its British-built Sea King rotorcraft and was awaiting a US offer to lease to India two anti-submarine warfare P-3 Orion aircraft.

"We have not yet received the offer for the Orions and we think it could turn out to be a very costly project," the admiral said.

The navy was also awaiting delivery of a refurbished Soviet-era aircraft carrier from the Russians as well a wide-bodied Illushyn-76 aircraft -- re-configured for maritime surveillance.

India, which declared itself a nuclear weapons state after exploding a string of atomic devices in 1998, is seeking to establish a triad of land, air and sea launch platforms for missile-based weapons.

Admiral Prakash said the navy, which has bases in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, was also working on a complex project to link up its warships and submarines via satellite.

"We've taken small steps in this major direction as this is a very complex and expensive project," he said, adding the navy would fund construction of an exclusive satellite for the project if necessary.

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