New Delhi, October 3: India will strongly take up with Russia the delay in delivery of aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, the refurbished Admiral Gorshkov, asking it to deploy additional manpower to ensure the warship’s “refit” is completed within 67 months.
Defence minister A K Antony will stress this to his visiting Russian counterpart Anatoly Serdyukov during the 12th meeting of India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC) here on Thursday, said sources.
The delivery of the already much-delayed Vikramaditya was to take place on December 9, as per the re-revised timeline, but crippling engine-boiler malfunctions during sea trials have put paid to the plan. It has been a double whammy for the navy as far as its long-standing ambition to deploy two operational carrier battle groups (CBGs) by 2015 was concerned. First, delivery schedule of the 40,000-tonne indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC) being built at Cochin Shipyard was pushed back to 2018.
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