New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inducted the country’s largest indigenously built warship INS Kolkata in Mumbai. Defence Minister Arun Jaitley and Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral R K Dhowan were present at the ceremony.
Constructed by the Mazagon Dockyards Limited, the warship is designed by Navy’s design bureau. The 6,800-tonne warship, which is over three years behind schedule, is a technology demonstrator and will showcase a giant leap in shipbuilding technology in the country.
INS Kolkata will be a part of the Kolkata Class destroyers of the Indian Navy which will include follow-on ships by the name of INS Kochin and INS Chennai respectively.
The keel of the warship was laid down in September 2003 and the ship was launched in 2006.
Its original commissioning was planned in 2010 but due to several project delays, it will now happen in 2014. The ship had also suffered a mishap during the trial phase when a Navy officer lost his life during an incident in the fire-fighting equipment of the vessel.As part of her pre-commissioning weapon trials at sea, INS Kolkata test-fired a BrahMos missile off Karwar’s coast last month.
India is also building an over 40,000-tonne Indigenous Aircraft Carrier christened INS Vikrant but it will take another three-four years before it gets inducted into the Navy. The INS Vikramaditya procured from Russia at the cost of over Rs 15,000 crore is so far the biggest vessel in the maritime force and is expected to hold this position for at least another decade.
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