India's first indigenously-manufactured aircraft carrier INS Vikrant will be inducted into the Navy in 2020. The ship now under construction at Cochin Shipyard was earlier scheduled to join service this year. A model of the 40,000 ton ship will be part of the Navy tableau on Republic Day. At present, the Indian Navy has only one aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya.
Delay in the induction of INS Vikrant into the Navy was due to equipment related to aviation complex from Russia, Principal Director of Naval Design Commodore J Chowdhary said here on Friday. He said the construction is in full swing and once it is complete by 2019, the fully built ship will undergo extensive mandatory harbor and sea trials. The Naval officer said the ship is scheduled to be inducted in October 2020. India will then join the select group of nations having the capability to indigenously design and build aircraft carriers. The other nations are UK, USA, Russia and France.
Elaborating upon the factors leading to the delay, Navy officials said it happened due to delay in non-availability of at least 18 types of major equipment related to aviation complex of the carrier from Russia. Once complete, the INS Vikrant will be able to have 20 MIG-29K fighter jets, and ten helicopters. The 260 metres long ship will have two take-off runways and landing strips with three arrester wires capable of operating a short take off but arrested delivery(STOBAR).
The Navy had also earlier planned to deploy indigenously built naval version of Tejas light combat aircraft(LCA)but had to shelve the plan as the aircraft failed to meet the carrier capability required by the Navy.
The design of the aircraft carrier with a cost of Rs 3,500 crore was approved by the defence ministry in 2003. However, the construction began in 2005 and as per the initial schedule the ship was supposed to be launched in water by 2010. The ship was finally launched in August 2013 after a delay of three years.
The repeated delays led to heavy cost overrun and the ship will now cost nearly Rs 20,000 crore. The Navy had told the Parliamentary Standing Committee on defence that the costs increased due to non-availability of Russian steel, delay in receipt of critical pre-launch equipment including gear box and threeMW diesel generators.