India-built INS Viktant handed over to Navy

By Our Special Correspondent

Cochin Shipyard on Thursday commissioned the Navy's indigenous aircraft carrier Vikrant, which was designed by the Navy's in-house Directorate of Naval Design and will be commissioned on August 15.

It was named India's first aircraft carrier after the Indian Naval Ship (INS) Vikrant, which played an important role in the 1971 war. The 262-metre-long carrier has a full displacement of 45,000 tones, making it much larger and more sophisticated than its predecessor.

The aircraft carrier is powered by four gas turbines with a total power of 88 MW and a top speed of 28 knots. According to the agreement between the Ministry of Defense and the shipyard, about Rs. Built at a cost of Rs 20,000 crore, the project will be completed in May 2007, December 2014 and October 2019 respectively. Its keel was laid in February 2009.

With an overall indigenous content of 76 per cent, the aircraft carrier Atma Nirbhar is a perfect example of the quest for India and a boost to the government's Make in India initiative, the Navy said. With the delivery of Vikrant, India joins a select group of countries that have the niche capability to design and build an aircraft carrier indigenously.