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Navy commissions INS Mangrol, third shallow-water submarine hunter from Kochi
The Cochin Shipyard-built craft, with over 80% indigenous content, is designed to hunt submarines in coastal and shallow waters.
Key points
- INS Mangrol was commissioned at the Naval Dockyard, Mumbai on 12 October.
- It is the third Mahe-class anti-submarine warfare shallow water craft built by Cochin Shipyard.
- The Navy is inducting 16 such craft under contracts worth nearly ₹13,000 crore.
The Indian Navy commissioned INS Mangrol, a warship built to find and fight submarines in shallow coastal waters, at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai on Monday.
Vice Admiral Sanjay Vatsayan, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Western Naval Command, presided over the ceremony. Mangrol is the third Mahe-class anti-submarine warfare shallow water craft built by Cochin Shipyard Limited in Kochi, and the Navy says more than 80% of it is made in India.
Vatsayan linked the induction to the state of the world around India’s coasts.
The commissioning assumes particular significance against the backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions.
What the ship carries
The craft is fitted with the Abhay hull-mounted sonar, lightweight torpedoes, an indigenous anti-submarine rocket launcher and the Maareech advanced torpedo decoy system. Three diesel engines drive waterjets, which make it nimble in shallow water where larger warships struggle. Besides hunting submarines, it can carry out underwater surveillance, low-intensity maritime operations and mine warfare tasks, and work alongside maritime patrol aircraft, helicopters and other warships.
The Navy is inducting 16 of these craft under contracts worth nearly ₹13,000 crore, with Cochin Shipyard and Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers in Kolkata building eight each.
An old name returns
The ship is named after Mangrol, a coastal town and fishing harbour in Gujarat’s Junagadh district. The name was last carried by INS Mangrol (M85), a minesweeper that served until April 2004.