Rajnath to ‘launch’ 2 indigenous stealth warships next week

Two indigenous frontline stealth warships, a destroyer and a frigate, will be “launched” into water at Mazagon Docks in Mumbai by defence minister Rajnath Singh on May 17.

The guided-missile destroyer will be named ‘INS Surat’ and the multi-purpose frigate ‘INS Udaygiri’ once they are commissioned three to four years down the line. Overall, the Navy has 41 warships on order, 39 being built in Indian shipyards and two in Russia.

The first of the four destroyers constructed under the overall Rs 35,000 crore Project-15B at MDL, the 7,400 tonne INS Visakhapatnam, was commissioned in November 2021.

The second, Mormugao, is slated for commissioning later this year, while Imphal and Surat will follow thereafter.

Udaygiri, in turn, is the third of the seven frigates being constructed under Project-17A, four in MDL and three at GRSE in Kolkata, at an overall cost of around Rs 45,000 crore.

The first two, Nilgiri and Himgiri, were launched in 2019 and 2020.