Naval chief to commission largest offshore patrol vessel

New Delhi: Strengthening Navy’s coastal surveillance capabilities, Admiral Robin Dhowan will commission its largest offshore patrol vessel INS Sumitra on Thursday in Chennai. “The latest generation warship built by the state-owned Goa Shipyard Limited will join the Eastern Naval Command fleet at Chennai for nation’s maritime surveillance and coastal security,” a GSL press release said.[caption id=“attachment_1693969” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Admiral RK Dhowan. PTI[/caption] The INS Sumitra is the Indian Navy’s largest offshore patrol vessel, the fourth in its class and built on in-house design of GSL, the shipyard said. The ship is fitted with most sophisticated weapons, guns, heavy calibre SRGM, rapid fire Russian AK630 guns, chaff launchers Kavach, Electronic warfare system Sanket and various other electronic sensors. “Significantly, all the equipment planned on the warship has been tried and fully operational. It is ready for its intentional role in war and peace. Further, ship has been built at fixed cost in scheduled time with no pending liabilities by the PSU shipyard,” the GSL said. The vessel can help meet navy’s requirement for undertaking ocean surveillance and surface warfare operations in order to prevent infiltration and transgression of maritime sovereignty and is suitable for monitoring sea lanes of communication, defence of offshore oil installations and other critical offshore national assets. GSL chief Rear Admiral Shekhar Mital (Retd) said this delivery would take the shipyard’s delivery account to 203 ships. The first, second and third of the series of 105 meter class of NOPV - INS Saryu, Sunayna and Sumedha were earlier handed over to the Navy by GSL. PTI