Updated: December 13, 2020 7:40:34 am
Gas torches passing through the aircraft carrier at Alang. (Quick)
As Sunday brings another high tide, INS Viraat will move closer to shore at Alang, hastening the breakdown of the iconic aircraft carrier.
For a week now, the aircraft carrier has been dismantling at the Alang Shipbreaking Yard in Bhavnagar, with more than 250 workers starting work from the ‘ski jump’, or curved, side ramp, from where the boats used to take off. planes. boat. “About 5 percent of the ship has already broken down,” said Mukesh Patel, president of the Shree Ram Group, which bought INS Viraat for scrap.
Patel added that decommissioning had begun as the weight of the 28,223-ton carrier must be reduced before it can be brought closer. “The ship is about 600 feet from shore right now,” he said.
While INS Viraat arrived in Alang about two months ago, Gujarat Maritime Board officials gave permission to dismantle it a month ago, after a final inspection of the vessel, including by officials from the Gujarat Pollution Control Board. (GPCB). Authorities said the carrier’s fuel tanks were cleaned of any residual fuel, old batteries were removed and checks were carried out for the presence of flammable gases to rule out possibilities of fire or explosions when the ship is cut off with gas torches.
INS Viraat was stranded in Alang on 28 September in a formal ceremony attended by the Union Minister of State, Maritime Transport, Mansukh Mandaviya and officials of the Navy, after numerous attempts to convert the aircraft carrier into an aircraft failed. Museum. Commissioned into the British Navy in 1959 as HMS Hermes, INS Viraat was inducted into the Indian Navy in 1986-87.
In a last bid, a private company, Envitech Marine Consultants Pvt Ltd, offered to buy INS Viraat from the Shree Ram Group and turn it into a museum. However, the company was unable to obtain a certificate of no objection from the Center or reach a formal agreement with the scrapyard.
When he first reached the beach, INS Viraat was about 3,000 feet from shore. Since then, at high tide, it has gotten closer with diesel powered winches. The next high tide is Sunday.
Being a naval ship, the INS Viraat is more difficult to dismantle than a normal ship. The aircraft carrier has a double hull made of steel plates that are thicker and it also has several smaller compartments. Patel said that even lifting it is more difficult. “Generally, merchant ships have a flat, saucer-shaped bottom. INS Viraat has a slim, streamlined design. “Shree Ram Group expects it will take a year to fully dismantle the carrier.
In 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi briefed Parliament on the decision to remove INS Viraat, saying that no “self-sufficient and financially complete” proposal had been found to preserve it. The governments of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Goa had then expressed their willingness to preserve the aircraft carrier and turn it into a museum.
INS Viraat is the second aircraft carrier to break down in India in the last six years. In 2014, INS Vikrant, which played a crucial role in the Indo-Pak war of 1971, was dismantled in Mumbai.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd
.
