India to commission first home-built carrier

NEW DELHI: India will formally commission its first home-built aircraft carrier on Friday, the culmination of 17 years of construction and tests as the country seeks to catch up with regional rival China and its far larger naval fleet.

The INS Vikrant, however, will not have its own fleet of fighter jets on deck and instead will rely on a few Russian-designed aircraft borrowed from India’s only other carrier, the INS Vikramaditya.

France’s Dassault and Boeing are locked in a race to provide the Indian government with over two dozen jets earmarked for the Vikrant, a 262 metre-long vessel built at the state-run Cochin Shipyard in southern India.

Designed by the Indian Navy, the carrier is the largest warship to be built in the country, able to accommodate a crew of around 1,600 and operate a fleet of 30 aircraft, including fighter jets and helicopters. More than 75 per cent of the ship’s components are indigenously procured, with half a dozen major industrial firms and over 100 smaller businesses providing equipment and machinery, according to India’s defence ministry.

The Vikrant will be commissioned on Friday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after completing almost a year of sea trials. “The final proof of the pudding is the ship’s performance during sea trials. While it seems to be behaving pretty well, stability wise, aircraft operations have yet to commence. One hopes it will be a success story all the way,” former chief of India’s naval staff admiral Arun Prakash said. “Because of our typically disjointed decision-making process, the selection of an aircraft got de-linked from the carrier project, and a decision is yet to be taken,” he said.