Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Eastern Naval Command Vice-Admiral Anil Chopra has said that the Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard are working in tandem to achieve the objective of maritime and coastal security of the country.
Addressing the gathering after commissioning the Indian Coast Guard ship, “Rajkiran” here on Wednesday, the Vice Admiral said there were numerous stakeholders in coastal security and building synergy amongst all of
them was extremely important to achieve the common goal of national security. He said ‘Rajkiran’ was a
value addition to the Coast Guard to tackle its task for patrolling, anti-smuggling, anti-poaching and search
and rescue operations. Inspector General and Commander, Coast Guard Region (East), SP Sharma said that the Coast Guard was committed to protecting the coastline with highly sophisticated ships.
ICG Rajkiran was the third of its series out of eight to be built by the Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers
(GRSE). Stating that the services of the Coast Guard had increased many folds in recent years, he said the Coast
Guard presently had 112 ships of various classes and was recruiting 700 sailors and 200 officers every year. The keel of ‘Rajkiran’ was laid on March 28, 2011 and it was built in a record time of 16 months. The complete design of the ship had been done in-house by GRSE engineers. ‘Rajkiran’ is a water jet propelled high-speed Inshore Patrol vessel (IPV) with a length of 50 m, displacement of 300 tonnes and a maximum speed of 34 knots. The ship is capable of undertaking multifarious tasks such as surveillance, interdiction, search, and rescue
and medical evacuation. The IPV has a complement of 35 personnel including five officers. The ship is fitted with a state-of-the art communication and navigational equipment and a 30 mm CRN - 91 gun fitted onboard as the
main armament. The ship will be based at Haldia under the administrative control of the Commander, Coast Guard Region (North-East).