On Thursday, Cochin Shipyard Ltd (CSL) announced that it has laid the keel for the seventh Anti-Submarine Warfare Shallow Water Craft (ASW SWC). This is part of a deal to build eight such ships for the Indian Navy. The special ceremony happened on Wednesday at CSL and was attended by Rear Admiral Upal Kundu, the Chief of Staff of the Southern Naval Command, along with other senior naval officers, CSL officials, and representatives from the DNV Classification Society.
The contract to make these eight ships was signed in April 2019 by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and CSL. These new ships, called the Mahe-class, will replace the older Abhay-class ASW Corvettes. They are designed for anti-submarine operations in coastal water, low-intensity maritime operations, mine-laying activities, and for monitoring under the sea.
The vessels will be equipped with the latest SONARS, which are devices used to detect submarines. They can go as fast as 25 knots (about 28.8 miles per hour) and can travel up to 1800 nautical miles (about 2077 miles) without needing to refuel. Building these advanced ships with a lot of Indian-made parts shows India’s strength and commitment to being self-reliant or ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat.’
So far, five out of the eight ships have been launched and are in different stages of being completed. The sixth ship’s keel was laid in December last year. The first of these new ships is expected to be ready by March 2025.
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