India set to commission aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya

The Indian Navy is making preparations to welcome aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, an upgrade of Russian Navy's Admiral Gorshkov.

The battle ship was offered to India by the Russian government after India started looking around for a replacement for INS Vikram. Negotiations with the Russian government got underway in 1994 for the acquisition of Admiral Gorshkov.

The ship, which is 284 metres in length would have a complement of naval combat aircraft MiG 29ks along with Kamov 31 and Kamov 28, anti submarine warfare and surveillance helicopters.

The vessel weighs 44, 500 tonnes, with about 40 per cent of the carrier being original and the remaining retrofitted and upgraded at a cost of $2.3 billion.

The aircraft carrier, however, lacks its own air defence missile system, which it will make up with the Barak Missile, which would be fitted on the carrier on its arrival, to protect from aerial attacks.

The carrier takes its new name from legendary emperor of Ujjain, Vikramaditya, who was known for his strength and valour.

Meanwhile, defence minister A K Antony is leaving for Russia to participate in the commissioning tomorrow at Sevmash Shipyard, Russia's nuclear submarine building centre.

Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin along with two senior government and naval officials of the two countries are also scheduled to attend the ceremony for handing over the former Kiev class carrier (formerly called Admiral Gorshkov) retrofitted and upgraded under Project 114430.

The process of signing the contract for retrofitting the aircraft carrier had stretched for almost nine years. Initially, the contract which included buying 16 MiG-29K aircraft, K/UB deck-based fighters, was pegged at $1.5 billion in 2004.

The aircraft carrier had been the cause of much irritation in bilateral relations and by the end of 2007, when it became clear that Russia would not deliver the radically redesigned vessel by 2008 deadline, Indo-Russian relations dropped to an all-time low.

According to chief delivery commissioner of Sevmash shipyard Igor Leonov, almost everything on the aircraft carrier was new.

Leonov was quoted by PTI as saying at the Sevmash shipyard that only 40 per cent hull of the vessel was original while the rest was absolutely new.

He said the Indian Navy, which always maintained its engineers and technicians on the vessel throughout the refit and modernisation process took the right decision to change many aggregates, components and entire cabling, instead of their repairs.

Vikramaditya would arrive at home base Karwar, on the western coast, after a two-month voyage, early next year.