Navy's first stealth frigate now in service

Mumbai: India's first locally-built stealth frigate was commissioned into service yesterday at a naval dockyard here.

"It is a red letter day for the navy, armed forces and ship building industry of India. We can consider ourselves a really potent force," said Defence Minister A.K. Antony who led the commissioning ceremony of the INS Shivalik.

Antony said the "navy has to maintain eternal vigilance since we have a long coastline".

Retired Admiral H.S. Malhi, Mazagaon Dock Ltd (MDL) Chairman and Managing Director, said: "This ship is a testimony to the collaborative efforts of the MDL and the navy and in more ways than one, this project has raised the benchmarks in our indigenous warship design and shipbuilding efforts".

The multi-role frigate, built by MDL, as part of the Indian Navy's Project 17, is a 143-metre-long warship with 6,000-tonne displacement. It has numerous new design features to effectively reduce the probability of detection at sea. A 250-member crew, including 35 officers, will man the ship.

The navy will get 10 more stealth warships in the next 10 years. The other two frigates of this class are the Satpura and Sahyadri. Construction of the Shivalik began in 2002 while that of Satpura and Sahyadri started in 2004 and 2005 respectively. The Satpura is expected to be commissioned by the end of the year while the Sahyadri will be in 2011.

State of the art

The Shivalik is equipped with a mix of Indian, Russian, Israeli and Western weapons and sensors systems. It also has state-of-the-art countermeasures against nuclear, biological and chemical attacks.

It is also the first warship of the Indian Navy to provide for separate rooms for female crew members.

"The ship has been constructed for considerable reduction in radar cross section signature and various measures have also been taken to suppress noise and vibration, infrared and magnetic signatures," said Malhi.

The in-built structural, thermal and acoustic stealth features augment the potent capability of the ship to address threats in all dimensions of maritime warfare.

The Indian Navy currently has a fleet of 130 warships, which includes an aircraft carrier, 20 landing ships, eight destroyers, 12 frigates and 16 attack submarines based in four commands, headquartered in Mumbai, Visakhapatnam, Kochi and Port Blair.