India's first aircraft
carrier Vikrant fades into history
Work has begun on
scrapping the country's first aircraft carrier, Vikrant.
Built for the British
Royal Navy as HMS Hercules in 1943, it was acquired by India in 1957 and saw
action during the India-Pakistan war in 1971, playing a key role.
When the electric saws
were pressed upon the ship, it essentially put an end to a movement by
activists to save her. Vikrant was auctioned to a ship-breaker for Rs 63 crore
this year. Mumbai's IB Commercials Pvt Ltd won the bid on January 29 and
bought the vessel on April 9. Since then, the company faced hurdles as a PIL
filed in the Bombay high court towards the end of 2013 proceeded to the Supreme
Court.
Save Vikrant Committee
chief Kiran Paigankar, who had filed the PIL to save the ship, termed it
"a sad day in the country's glorious maritime history". He said it
was unfortunate that the process to expedite the end of Vikrant was initiated
by the Indian Navy which once considered the vessel its 'pride'.
"I was ready to
accede to the activists' demand for converting the vessel into a permanent
museum. But my request to get my money back, the money that I had pumped in to
buy the ship, was not granted. I had taken loans on high interest," said Abdul
Karim Jaka, the owner of IB Commercials. "I had been meeting the activists
even before the PIL was filed. I met them even after the PIL was dismissed on
August 14. I met Admiral (retd) I C Rao and Aam Aadmi Party's Meera Sanyal, but
nothing concrete happened. The navy handed over the vessel to us in October. On
November 12, we got the go ahead from the Supreme Court to start cutting the
steel." His son Zuber said, "At 2pm on Tuesday approximately 200
workers at our yard embarked upon the work to cut out 15,700 tons of steel from
the vessel."
"An important chapter of Indian history revolving around Vikrant has finally ended. Despite all our efforts, we could not prevent her from breaking up," Paigankar said
"An important chapter of Indian history revolving around Vikrant has finally ended. Despite all our efforts, we could not prevent her from breaking up," Paigankar said
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