Arnala being showered with flower petals during her launch in Chennai. (Photo: GRSE)
Chennai: “Arnala”, the first of the eight ships being built by the Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers under the Anti-Submarine Warfare Short Watercraft (ASW-SWC) Project, was launched in Chennai, on Tuesday. A total of 16 such ships will be built for the Indian Navy under the project – eight each by the Cochin Shipyard Limited and the GRSE.
Arnala made first contact with the waters of the Bay of Bengal after being launched from the L&T facility at Chennai’s Kattupally village, at 10.40am. Rasika Chaube, who is the financial adviser (defence services) in the defence ministry, launched the ship at a ceremony amid the chanting of verses from the Atharvaveda.
The ship has been named Arnala after the island by the same name, which lies 13 kilometres north of Vasai, Maharashtra. The island was of great strategic significance during the rule of 17th-century Maratha emperor – Shivaji Bhonsale I (Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj).
The contract for building eight ASW SWC ships was signed between the defence ministry and Kolkata’s Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers on April 29, 2019. The Arnala-class of ASW ships will replace the Abhay-class ASW ships of the Indian Navy.
This class of ships is designed to undertake anti-submarine operations in coastal waters and low-intensity maritime operations (LIMO), including subsurface surveillance in littoral waters. The Arnala-class ships will be 77.6 metres long and have a displacement of 900 tons (816.466 tonnes) with a maximum speed of 25 knots (46.3 kilometres per hour) and endurance of 1,800 nautical miles (3333.6 kilometres).
In a media release, the GRSE said: “Despite challenges due to the Covid-19 pandemic, GRSE has made substantial progress on the ships of this project. The launch of this ship reinforces our resolve towards completely indigenous shipbuilding as part of the prime minister’s vision of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India).”
It further said: “The (new Arnala-class) ASW SWC ships will have over 80 per cent indigenous content, ensuring that large scale defence production is executed by Indian manufacturing units, thereby generating employment and capability build up within the country.”
