Raksha Mantri Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman spends a glorious day in Vizag

INS Kiltan, third of the Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) stealth corvettes built under Project 28 (Kamorta Class) was commissioned into the Indian Navy by Hon’ble Raksha Mantri Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman at an impressive ceremony held at Naval Dockyard, Visakhapatnam today.

On arrival at the Naval Jetty, Hon’ble Raksha Mantri Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman was received by Admiral Sunil Lanba, the Chief of the Naval Staff. The Hon’ble Raksha Mantri was presented with a Guard of Honour and was introduced to the dignitaries’ present prior commencement of commissioning ceremony.

During her address post commissioning of INS Kiltan, the Hon’ble Raksha Mantri, Smt Nirmala Sitharaman congratulated the Indian Navy, M/s. GRSE, other Indian PSUs and a host of small and medium scale industries, which have contributed towards building this fine ship. She emphasised that the Navy’s relentless pursuit of self-reliance through indigenisation is highly appreciable and this has helped the Indian Navy to seamlessly transform from a Buyer’s to a Builder’s Navy. She highlighted that the addition of INS Kiltan to the naval fleet is a reaffirmation of this transformation. She further exhorted that we need to benchmark our shipbuilding practices to international best practices and produce quality ships in a shorter time frame and at competitive costs. She further stated that the Government fully appreciates the nation’s defence requirements and requisite finances for the Armed Forces and Defence industry would be made available for the modernisation and development plans of the Navy. The Raksha Mantri later unveiled the Commissioning Plaque and dedicated the ship to the nation.

Admiral Sunil Lanba, the Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Admiral HCS Bisht, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Eastern Naval Command, Rear Admiral VK Saxena (Retd), CMD, Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Limited, Kolkata (GRSE), Kolkata, Commodore MB Kunte (Retd) first Commanding Officer of erstwhile Kiltan and a host of other dignitaries were also present during the commissioning ceremony. The event marked the formal commissioning into the Navy of the third of the four ASW Corvettes, indigenously designed by the Indian Navy’s in-house organisation, Directorate of Naval Design and constructed by Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Limited, Kolkata.

Source – Indian Navy