BIG BOOST TO INDIAN NAVY: INS Khanderi submarine commissioned

New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh commissioned India's second Scorpene-class attack submarine INS Khanderi into the Indian Navy in a ceremony held at the Mazagon Docks in Mumbai on Saturday.

The commissioning was marked by the hoisting of the Indian National Flag on the flagpost of the submarine. Navy chief Admiral Karambir Singh and a host of other dignitaries including senior naval officials were also present on the occasion.

The Defence Minister also commissioned the first of India's P-17 Shivalik-class frigate Nilgiri and the aircraft carrier drydock into the Indian Navy during the ceremony.

The Navy said that the country's combat potential in the oceans has taken a quantum leap with the three inductions.

The INS Khanderi is the second attack submarine that has been commissioned into the Indian Navy under the P-75 project.

In 2017, another submarine INS Kalvari had already been inducted into the Navy. The conventional submarine has been manufactured by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited in Mumbai.

Nilgiri, the Alpha Shivalik-class frigate, a stealth warship, has been built under a programme called P-17.

The project, worth over Rs 45,000 crore, consists of a series of seven ships out of which three will be built by the Mazagon Dock Limited in Mumbai and three by the Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers in Kolkata.

The Nilgiri is a follow-up to the first ever frigate which was built by the Mazgaon Dock Limited way back in the 1970s and has now been decommissioned.

Five more ships of the Nilgiri-class will be named after the famous hill ranges of India including Himgiri, Udaygiri, Dunagiri, Taragiri and Vindhyagiri. The seventh and last frigate will be named as Mahendragiri.

The aircraft carrier drydock which was commissioned on Saturday is the largest drydock of the Indian Navy. Maintenance work on ships which cannot be carried out while it is out in the seas is undertaken after berthing it in a drydock.

Apart from maintenance works, the drydock also provides facilities for refueling and repair.

The dimensions of the drydock commissioned on Saturday are such that it will be capable of even drydocking INS Vikramaditya, the modified Kiev-class aircraft carrier of Indian Navy.