 |
| INS Sindhuvijay, a Sindhughosh class submarine (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By Ankit Panda
India’s INS Sindhukirti is set to reenter service after nearly a decade-long upgrade process.
The Indian Navy’s INS Sindhukirti is set to enter its final “full-power trials” from this Friday after a decade-long upgrade process. According to the Times of India, the attack submarine will formally return into service with the Indian Navy next month, offering a much-needed windfall to India’s limited submarine force. Sindhukirti is the seventh Sindhughosh-class (Indian name for the Russian Kilo-class) diesel-electric attack submarine in the Indian Navy, and was originally commissioned in 1990. The Sindhukirti entered its upgrade process in 2006.
The Sindhukirti‘s original upgrade process was scheduled for three years, but was eventually delayed for years beyond its original deadline. Reporting on the matter last fall, India’s Business Standard found that the cause of the delay wasn’t logistical inefficiency or bureaucratic mishandling—two common afflictions for Indian defense endeavors—but rather due to a series of incremental extensions of the upgrade process by Russians working with India’s Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL), the shipyard in charge of the upgrades.
Read the full story at The Diplomat