Prez Commissions India's Stealth Warship 'INS Vindhyagiri' In Kolkata

President Droupadi Murmu commissioned the latest warship 'INS Vindhyagiri' at the Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited Shipbuilding Center(GRSE) on the banks of the Hooghly River at Khidarpur in Kolkata,West Bengal on 17 August 2023. 

President Murmu is the commander in Chief of the Indian Armed Forces including Indian Navy.

President Murmu also launched the  'My Bengal, Addiction Free Bengal' Campaign under the 'Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyan', organized by Brahma Kumaris at Raj Bhavan, Kolkata.

INS Vindhyagiri has been named after the mountain range in Karnataka, is the sixth ship of the Project 17A of the Indian Navy .

Project 17 A

Project 17A Frigates are the follow-on class of the Project 17 (Shivalik Class) Frigates, with improved stealth features, advanced weapons and  sensors and platform management systems.

Project 17A battleships are guided missile frigates. The warship is equipped with stealth technology, advanced weapons, sensors and platform management systems. It is capable of neutralizing threats in all three dimensions of air, surface and subsurface.

Project 17A ships have been designed in-house by the Indian Navy's Warship Design Bureau, the pioneer organization for all warship design activities.

A substantial 75 per cent of the orders for equipment and systems of Project 17A ships are from indigenous firms, including Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

Under the Project 17A program, a total of four ships by Mazagon Dock Ltd (MDL) and three ships by GRSE are under construction. The project's first five ships have been launched by the MDL and GRSE between 2019 and 2022.

The ships launched under Project 17 A are:

•  INS Nilgiri, 

• INS Himgiri, 

• INSTaragiri, 

• INS Udaygiri, 

• INS Dunagiri, and 

• INS Vindhyagiri.

The seventh ship will be named as  INS Mahendragiri.