KOCHI: As many as 19 Chinese surveillance satellites are monitoring the Indian waters as the region is emerging as one of the world's most strategic areas in the 21st century, secretary to defence minister and Defence Research and Development Organisation ( DRDO ) director-general Avinash Chander said here on Wednesday.

Chander said India needed to create capabilities to counter or neutralize the information that is being transmitted through these satellites. "We need to develop technologies to monitor our waters in all the three dimensions," he said while inaugurating a symposium on ocean electronics ( Sympol-2013 ) organized by the centre for ocean electronics, Cochin University of Science and Technology .

India will need 80-100 satellites that can be deployed in formation within hours or in a day. "It is time to revisit our surveillance strategies. The West is, of course, more advanced," he said.

Chander said maritime domain awareness, providing seamless coverage of areas of interest that demands intelligent synergy among many platforms like unmanned aerial vehicles, space-based indigenous navigational systems and communication satellites for real-time multi-mode information was the need of the hour. "We need to develop deep-sea sonar that operates in extreme ocean depths, in the so-called 'deep sound channel', to detect quiet enemy submarines from thousands of miles," he said.

The DRDO is funding research in underwater technologies for capability and manpower development though naval research boards and academic institutions, he said.

