Russia, India to Discuss Vikramaditya Delivery at Summit in Delhi

Delivery of aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya (former Russian Admiral Gorshkov) to India will be discussed at the Russian-Indian summit in Delhi late in Dec 2012, reports Vpk.name referring to RIA Novosti and press service of Sevmash shipyard revamping the ship.

Earlier on, Russian president's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said Putin would visit Delhi on Dec 24. All issues of the bilateral agenda must be completed before that date.

"The national leadership puts great emphasis upon implementation of this bilateral project. Russian and Indian presidents will meet in Delhi soon. Among priority matters, the leaders will discuss completion of the ship's trials, additional flight and sea tests, and delivery of Vikramaditya to Indian Navy", said Yekaterina Pilikina, press secretary of Sevmash shipyard.

India was supposed to receive the ship on Dec 4, 2012. However, a number of defects were revealed in Sept during sea trial round; in particular, steam boilers of main propulsion plant failed to reach full power. According to initial contract, Russia was supposed to deliver the ship back in 2008. Later on, president of United Shipbuilding Corporation declared it was planned to hand over the ship to India by the end of 2013.

Currently, INS Vikramaditya is moored at Sevmash. The shipyard is working on defective parts of the carrier.

"Sevmash actively got in defect elimination process, now hot works are going on. Program of recovery activities has been agreed with numerous contractors and trial participants, including MiG and Kamov, Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief and president of United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) Andrei Diachkov who had approved the program", Pilikina said.

She added that the ship would take sea to resume trials early in the summer 2013.

Rusnavy