President Droupadi Murmu launched India’s newest stealth frigate INS Vindhyagiri at the Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd’s (GRSE) facility on the banks of Hooghly River in Kolkata, West Bengal on Thursday.
Murmu arrived in Kolkata on Thursday morning to inaugurate the advanced stealth frigate for the Indian Navy.
Named after the mountain range in Karnataka, INS Vindhyagiri is the sixth ship of the Project-17A Frigates.
The state-of-the-art ship will be fitted with the latest gadgets and undergo extensive trials before being handed over to the Indian Navy for commissioning into service, officials familiar with the matter said.
P17A ships are guided missile frigates, each 149 metres long, with a displacement of approximately 6,670 tonnes and a speed of 28 knots, according to a GRSE official.
These warships are follow-ons of the Shivalik class Project-17 frigates with improved stealth features, advanced weapons and sensors and platform management systems and are capable of neutralising threats in all three dimensions of air, surface and subsurface, the defence ministry informed.
INS Vindhyagiri is the last of the three ships being built by Defence PSU GRSE for the Indian Navy. The first five ships of the project were launched between 2019 and 2022.
This is Murmu’s second visit to West Bengal since becoming the president last year.
The president, who is on a date-long visit to the state will also launch the ‘My Bengal, Addiction Free Bengal’ campaign under the ‘Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyan’, organised by Brahma Kumaris at the Raj Bhavan.