Admiral Gorshkov to be Handed Over to India by December 2012

After closely examining the ongoing refit work on Admiral Gorshkov in Russia, the Navy is now confident the aircraft carrier will be ready for harbour trials by early-2011 to ensure it can be handed over to India by December 2012 or so. India earlier this year agreeing to the revised refit cost of $2.33 billion for Gorshkov.

"There has been substantial progress since the last examination in September 2009. Around 99% of the structural work and almost 50% of the cabling work has been completed on the carrier. Almost all large-size equipment, like engines, diesel generators and the like, has been installed,'' said an officer. The Navy plans to deploy two carrier-battle groups (CBGs) by 2014-2015, as reported by TOI earlier. The first CBG will be centred around Gorshkov, rechristened INS Vikramaditya, while the second will be on the 40,000-tonne indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC) being constructed at the Cochin Shipyard, which Navy hopes to get by 2014.

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