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The Indian Navy's Self-Sufficiency Expansion Plan
When the missile destroyer INS DELHI was commissioned on November 15, 1997, it marked the beginning of an ambitious, future-oriented programme to make India self-sufficient in warship deployment. The DELHI is intended to be the forerunner in a series of highly-sophisticated ships, to progressively join the fleet within the next decade. Alongside this, work has commenced on projects for an aircraft carrier and a nuclear powered submarine.
The millennium will, thus, see the Indian Navy transformed into a true "blue water" force, with most of its key elements - aircraft carriers, major surface combatants, submarines and weapons - made indigenously.
At 6,500 tons (full load), INS DELHI is the largest and easily the most powerful warship ever built in India. The DELHI is described as the first dedicated command and control warship in the Indian Navy's service, and together with her two sisterships currently under construction for delivery over the next two to three years (MYSORE and MUMBAI) she will become one of the key hubs around which the entire future fleet would revolve. The ship is currently involved in a long period of "shakedown cruises" and operational evaluation trials, and she is expected to be formally declared operational in early-mid 1999.
In terms of technology, the DELHI is the most sophisticated fighting platform ever to fly the Indian flag, and embodies a fundamental step forward over earlier efforts in the path towards self-sufficiency with the NILGIRI and GODAVARI class frigates. Her design is based on a further expanded version of the same approach that was adopted for the frigates, namely the successful integration of key Indian and foreign technologies and components into a coherent system.
The success of the DELHI project is mostly an effort of the Navy's Design Directorate and the Mumbai-based Mazagon Dock Ltd (MDL), with significant contribution by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) and scores of private-sector companies. Most of the components and sub-systems, including in.particular the propulsion plant and the main missile battery, come from Russia, which has traditionally played and is still playing a unique role in building India's defence capabilities.
The ship's price is reported at Rs.700 crove (US$585 million).
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