NEW DELHI: India’s lone aircraft carrier 44,500 tonne INS Vikramaditya is undergoing a major refit and is not in operations for more than a year.
Its return has been delayed due to the recent fire onboard.
Sources in the defence circle confirmed to this newspaper, “INS Vikramaditya was undergoing an 18-month long refit and maintenance cycle since early 2021 and was expected this month had the fire not occurred.”
It will now take an additional few months before it gets deployed for operations, the source added.
A major fire was reported aboard the carrier on July 20 while undergoing a planned sortie for sea trials as part of the refit and maintenance.
Every warship and submarine follows a maintenance and refit routine, as per a planned cycle, which ranges from a week-long routine to more than a year.
The refit time depends on the size and the work required to be done and during this period the boats are out of operation.
The INS Vikramaditya has earlier underwent two refits since it was inducted into the Indian Navy in 2013, with the last one lasting five months and done in 2018 at Cochin Shipyard. Under the maintenance plan since then it was scheduled for a longer maintenance routine to be conducted in 2020 or 2021.
“While the ship was due for refit and maintenance it was kept operational during Galwan as the country needed It.” said the source.
While the previous time the carrier’s hull got treated and painted and a large number of tanks and spaces were also cleaned and painted too. In addition, some work on the shafts - the carrier has four of them, was done. The bearings of the shafts were also changed then.
As reported by TNIE the Indian Navy has been pitching for the third aircraft carrier for a long time.
The logic put across is that the country should have at least two active carriers at any given time. In such a case availability of three aircraft carriers will give options of deploying one each on the eastern and western seaboard and the third can be put to the maintenance and repair cycle which can stretch up to years.
Given the Chinese belligerence in the Indian Ocean, the officers had said that the country will have to extend air power into far-off areas like the Malacca Strait on one side and Gulf of Aden on the other.
“Concentration of force is a principle of war. If you have two operationally ready carriers, you can be active in two areas. If needed, you can move it, bringing a different environment to the battle.”
Meanwhile, with its prowess in manufacturing, China has become the biggest navy with 355 warships and submarines with India having a fleet of 130 of them.