Article Posted on : - Feb 19, 2020

Rear Admiral VK Saxena, Chairman and Managing Director GRSE, shakes hands with Cdr. Sandeep Singh, Commanding Officer (Desig) of INS Kavaratti (R) during the handing over of INS Kavaratti to Indian Navy, at GRSE in Kolkata, Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020. A PTI Photo

KOLKATA (PTI): Defence PSU Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd (GRSE) has delivered its fourth anti-submarine warfare stealth corvette to the Indian Navy, an official said.

Kavaratti was the last in the series of four anti- Submarine Warfare Corvettes (ASWC) built by Kolkata-based GRSE under Project 28, he said.

The first three ships of the series -- INS Kamorta, INS Kadmatt and INS Kiltan -- were delivered earlier, and form an integral part of Eastern Fleet of the Indian Navy, the GRSE official said on Tuesday.

They have been engaged in several overseas operations and international maritime exhibitions in Malaysia, Singapore and other countries, the official said.

Project 28, approved in 2003, is a class of anti- submarine warship corvettes currently in service with the Indian Navy. The corvettes are named after islands in the Lakshadweep archipelago.

INS Kiltan recently participated in the prestigious Exercise Malabar 2019, an endeavour to strengthen India- Japan-US naval cooperation and enhance interoperability, the official said.

With 90 per cent indigenous content, the P-28 class ships are equipped to fight in nuclear, biological and chemical warfare conditions and featured the integration of a host of weapons and sensors.

These ASW corvettes have catapulted the Indian Navy into the elite club of countries that have built stealth ships, the GRSE official said, adding that the stealth features make the ships almost invisible to the enemy, both above and below the sea surface.

The corvettes -- designed as an extremely versatile ASW platform capable of neutralising enemy submarines with indigenous weapons like torpedoes and rocket launchers -- are equally effective in the littorals and deep oceans, the official said.

Capable of attaining a maximum speed of 25 knots, the ship has a length of 109 metres and width of 12.8 metres, he said, adding that it has an endurance of over 3400 nautical miles (NM) at 18-knot speed, and can accommodate 17 officers and 106 sailors.

Kavaratti and INS Kiltan are the first two major warships in the country to have the unique feature of superstructure made of carbon fibre composite material.

It is for the first time in India that such composite material is being integrated with steel hull of a ship, and GRSE is the first shipyard in the country to have successfully achieved this task, the official added.