Article Posted on : - May 04, 2010

Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier. A file photo.

MOSCOW (BNS): Russia has said it will stick to the 2012 deadline of delivering modernised Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier to India.

“We are catching up with the retrofit of the Admiral Gorshkov.

“We will fulfill the obligations Russia has undertaken,” Roman Trotsenko, head of Russia's united shipbuilding corporation, was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.

India recently agreed to pay an additional US$ 2.33 billion to Russia for Admiral Gorshkov.

As per the original contract signed between the two countries in 2004, Indian Navy was to get the carrier in 2008.

However, the two countries were negotiating for the last one year over Russia’s demand for $2 billion over and above the $1.5 billion that New Delhi paid it in 2004. Russia pushed the delivery of the vessel to 2012.

The Government of India recently said that the price spent on the repairing and refurbishing of the aircraft carrier was akin to the price of similar warships built in other countries.

Gorshkov will be inducted in the Indian Navy as INS Vikramaditya.