Article Posted on : - Mar 27, 2013

People cheer during the launch of Indian Navy's anti-submarine warfare corvette INS Kiltan on the Ganges river in Kolkata on Tuesday. Photo: PTI.

KOLKATA (BNS): The third anti-submarine warfare (ASW) corvette, designed under the ambitious Project-28 (P-28) by the Navy's Directorate of Naval Design, was launched in Kolkata on Tuesday.

The warship will be fitted with indigenous state-of-the-art weapons and sensors, including a medium range gun, torpedo tube launchers, rocket launchers and close-in weapon system.

Being built by one of India's leading shipbuilders, Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd. (GRSE), it has been named after an island - Kiltan - in the Lakshwadeep archipelago of India. The ASW Corvette was launched by Chitra Joshi from GRSE mainyard in the presence of Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral DK Joshi, Chairman and Managing Director, GRSE, Rear Admiral (Retd) A K Verma and other officials from the Ministry of Defence, Armed Forces and West Bengal administration.

With nearly 90% indigenisation content, the building of the corvette was a major initiative, Navy officials said.

The first GRSE-built ASW corvette, Kamorta, is expected to be delivered to the Navy by this year-end. It was launched on April 19, 2010 and had suffered a delay of nearly one year.

The remaining ships, according to GRSE, will be delivered by 2016. The fourth ASW corvette will be launched in 2014 and built, fitted and tested and delivered to the Navy in little over 20 months, the officials said.