INS Vikrant

Why in news?

• The Defence Procurement Board (DPB) recently discussed the Navy’s proposal for a second Vikrant-like aircraft carrier, but the proposal has not yet received clearance.
• The final approval will be sought from the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), led by the Defence Minister.

About INS Vikrant:

• IAC-1 Vikrant has been designed by the Indian Navy’s Directorate of Naval Design (DND).
• It is being built at Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL), a Public Sector Shipyard under the Ministry of Shipping.

Key Features:

• Vikrant is the first aircraft carrier designed and built in India. It has over 76 percent of the material and equipment which is indigenous.
• Vikrant is named after the Majestic-class aircraft carrier, which was operated by the Indian Navy from 1961 to 1997.
• The ship is 262 m long, It has over 2,300 compartments designed for a crew of around 1700 people.
• With numerous high-end technologies, including network-centric distributed data processing and control systems and state-of-the-art weapons such as the Barak LR-SAM (long-range surface-to-air missile) and sensors.
• It can accommodate around 30 aircraft on board. It also has specialized cabins to accommodate women officers and sailors.
• It has a 16-bed hospital and an emergency medical care unit along with an Intensive Care Unit, a radiology wing and other medical facilities.
• Using a novel aircraft-operation mode known as STOBAR (Short Take-Off but Arrested Landing), the carrier is equipped with a ski-jump for launching aircraft and a set of ‘arrester wires’ for their recovery onboard.

Significance:

• Only five or six nations currently have the capability of manufacturing an aircraft carrier. India joins this elite club now.
• India’s earlier aircraft carriers were either built by the British or the Russians.
• The INS Vikramaditya, currently the Navy’s only aircraft carrier that was commissioned in 2013, started out as the Soviet-Russian Admiral Gorshkov.
• The country’s two earlier carriers, INS Vikrant and INS Viraat were originally the British-built HMS Hercules and HMS Hermes before being commissioned into the Navy in 1961 and 1987 respectively
• With a displacement of 43,000 tonnes when fully loaded, INS Vikrant is set to be the seventh largest among the carriers or carrier classes in the world.

PRACTICE QUESTION

Consider the following statements regarding INS Vikrant

1. It is India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier

2. India is the only country after U.S and Russia to have indigenous aircraft carrier

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer