The largest offshore patrol ship indigenously designed and built by Goa Shipyard Ltd (GSL) for the Indian Navy, named INS ‘Sumedha’ will be formally commissioned by VAdm Anil Chopra, PVSM, AVSM, FO C-IN-C East on 7th March 2014 at GSL.
The ship on commissioning will join Eastern Naval Command at Vizag, the sword arm of Indian Navy.
RAdm (Retd.) Shekhar Mital NM, CMD GSL in his message said “This warship is the culmination of many years of in-house design development and ship build techniques. The commissioning of this ship, marks a significant milestone in GSL’s & nation’s march towards indigenization and self reliance. It becomes more important as Sumedha is 200th ship indigenously built by GSL. GSL is the only yard which has delivered four classes of OPVs to both Navy and Coast Guard. Successive projects have witnessed considerable improvement, bringing applaud from users to Shipyard.”
CMD further said “Yard is now undertaking massive modernisation at an outlay of Rs. 700 Crores, of which Rs. 400 Crores has already been spent. Yard is near ready to take on construction of new MCMV project, which will provide major push to Naval mine sweeping capabilities”.
INS ‘Sumedha’ is the third of the new 105 meter class of NOPV and the largest ship constructed by GSL for the Indian Navy. This state of the art ship will help meet the increasing requirement of the Indian Navy for undertaking ocean surveillance and surface warfare operations in order to prevent infiltration and transgression of maritime sovereignty. This ship is suitable for monitoring sea lanes of communication, defence of offshore oil installations and other critical offshore national assets. The ship can also be deployed for escorting high value ships and fleet support operations.
The first and second of the series of new NOPV, INS SARYU and SUNAYNA were earlier handed over to the Indian Navy by GSL on 21 December 2012 and 02 September 2013 respectively.
It will be recalled that Shore Based Test Facility(SBTF) meant for landing trials of MIG 29K & LCA, built by GSL at INS Hansa is also ready for commissioning. This is a unique and only facility created by GSL in Asia and third in the world. The facility has already been used for training of naval pilots for landing onboard Vikramaditya.
[mappress] Press Release, March 4, 2014, 2014; Image: Goa Shipyard