Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 20

The Indian Navy today launched a new warship, Imphal, making it the first ship to be named after a state or capital city in the North-East. Imphal is the capital of Manipur. 

The Navy names its warships sequentially. At present it is in the middle of naming new ships after a city in each of coastal states—INS Kolkatta, INS Chennai and INS Kochi have been commissioned—all three are frigates.

Guided-missile destroyers Visakhapatnam and Mormugao have been launched and will be commissioned soon. There are existing warships named INS Mumbai and INS Mysore. The word INS (Indian Naval Ship) can be prefixed only once a ship is commissioned. 

The name Imphal has come up after breaking the sequence. The next two guided-missile frigates of the ongoing Visakhapatnam class were supposed to be named from Odisha and Gujarat—both states otherwise have a huge naval presence.

A warship exists by the name of INS Brahmaputra, but since the river flows only in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, the remaining north-eastern states remained unrepresented in the Navy’s warship-naming sequence. The Navy has some 150 warships.

Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba launched the third ship-guided missile destroyer Imphal at Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited, Mumbai, on Saturday. In keeping with maritime traditions, Reena Lanba, the wife of the Navy Chief, broke a coconut on the ship’s bow.

The ship features cutting-edge advanced technology and is comparable to the best ships of similar class anywhere in the world. These ships have been designed indigenously by the Indian Navy’s Directorate of Naval Design. It spans 163 metres in length and 17.4 metres at beam and displaces 7,300 tonne. Four gas turbines will power it. Enhanced stealth

features have been achieved through shaping of hull and use of radar transparent deck fittings, which make these ships difficult to detect.

It is packed with an array of state-of-the-art weapons and sensors, including multi-functional surveillance radars and vertically launched missile system BrahMos for long distance engagement of shore, sea-based and air targets.

Admiral Lanba said India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier Vikrant will be delivered to the Navy by 2021. “Harbour acceptance trials are in progress and sea acceptance trial of this will commence in the latter half of this year,” he said.