Stealth-guided missile destroyer Mormugao commissioned into Indian Navy

PTI, Dec 18, 2022, 1:50 PM IST

Image Credit: ANI

Mumbai: The stealth guided missile destroyer Mormugao, the second of the four ‘Visakhapatnam’ class destroyers, was commissioned into the Indian Navy on Sunday.

Speaking at the commissioning ceremony in Mumbai, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said INS Mormugao is evidence of India’s excellence in warship design and development.

INS Mormugao is among the most powerful Indigenous warships, Singh said. This is the most technologically advanced warship, he added.

Singh said the warship’s commissioning will boost India’s maritime power. Indian economy is among the top five economies in the world, and according to experts, will be among the top three in 2027, Singh said.

The Navy chief said the commissioning of the warship, on the eve of the Goa Liberation Day, is indicative of the large strides taken in warship design and building capability over the last decade.

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan and Goa governor P S Sreedharan Pillai were present at the ceremony at naval dockyard.

INS Mormugao is the second of the four ‘Visakhapatnam’ class destroyers of ‘Project 15B’, indigenously designed by the Indian Navy’s in-house organisation, Warship Design Bureau and constructed by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited, Mumbai.

Named after the historic port city of Goa, Mormugao coincidentally undertook first sea trial on December 19, 2021, when Goa celebrated 60 years of liberation from the Portuguese rule.

INS Mormugao is 163 metres long and 17 metres wide. It has a displacement of 7,400 tonnes and a maximum speed of 30 knots (55 kmph).

The warship is packed with sophisticated state of the art weapons and sensors such as surface to surface missile and surface to air missiles. It is fitted with a modern surveillance radar which provides target data to the gunnery weapon systems on board.