NEW DELHI: In a move towards the government approval for the second Indigenous Aircraft Carrier, the Defence Procurement Board has moved ahead with the proposal of the Indian Navy. The sources confirmed the decision of the DPB and added that the same, along with the other proposals will be placed before the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) soon.
The DPB is the body constituted to vet the capital proposals of the services which are eventually placed before the Defence Minister chaired DAC. As per procedure, it is the DAC that grants the Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) which sets the procedure for acquisition.
As reported earlier, files for another indigenous aircraft carrier were already in advanced stages and will get government approval. Besides, the plan for the third and larger aircraft carrier is in motion, the source said.
This newspaper reported in February that in order to maintain its operational capabilities, the Indian Navy would continue the study for its third indigenous aircraft carrier which will be larger than the IAC-2. The Navy’s confirmations for the IAC-2 on the lines of the IAC-1 commissioned as INS Vikrant were given with the document works being completed in December 2022.
It was on the sidelines of Aero India 2023 that Chief of Naval Staff Admiral R Hari Kumar said, “Initially, we will go for the repeat order with improved capabilities. In the meantime, we will go for a study of larger carriers. By the time a third aircraft is commissioned, the life span of INS Vikramaditya may end.”
Some changes were made to the initial plans of IAC 2 which was supposed to be bigger than IAC 1 in size. The size of INS Vikrant is 44,000 tonnes and we wanted the IAC2 to be around 65,000 tonnes.