A few weeks from now, India’s decommissioned Vikrant—the aircraft carrier that played a
key role in the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war and in the liberation of
Bangladesh—will have been completely scrapped.
IB Commercial Pvt Ltd, a ship-breaking
company, started the aircraft carrier’s scrapping process five months ago at
Darukhana in Mumbai. “It is a matter of few days or weeks that the process will
be completed,” said a company supervisor at the site, where scrapping work is
going on nearly 24x7.
The company had won the bid to undertake
the scrapping of Vikrant and had commenced work on November 20 last year at
Mumbai’s ship-breaking yard.
Earlier, the Maharashtra government had
accorded approval to convert Vikrant into a modern museum under Built, Operate
and Transfer (BOT) basis. After a resolution, the project was implemented by
Maharashtra Urban Infrastructure Development Company Ltd.
Vikrant was to be permanently berthed off
the Osyter Rock near the Radio Club alongside the Gateway of India. But since
the ship was decommissioned, the maritime museum project ran into rough weather
several times.
The cash-strapped government finally
decided to scrap the project. The aircraft carrier was laid down in November
1943 and launched as Hercules in September 1945, but construction was stopped
after the second World War ended. In 1957, she was sold to India and in 1961
she was commissioned as INS Vikrant, India’s first aircraft carrier, on March
4, 1961. She was decommissioned on January 31, 1997.
Source: deccan herald. 11 April 2015
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