Gaza conflict further delays missile trial

“The trials were to be held in August, but have been delayed due to the Gaza crisis. We are closely monitoring the situation in Israel and the trials are expected in September. The induction should happen in few months after that,” Rear Admiral A B Singh said on Wednesday.

Refuting the claims that INS Kolkata would be defenceless without the LR-SAM system, the Navy officials asserted that the destroyer ship was armed with “close-in weapon system, chaff system and electronic warfare system”, sufficient to defend the ship against threats at the moment.

Talking about the LR-SAM project, which has been delayed by two years after its co-development began in 2006, a DRDO official said the recent delay in the trials was because the motors which were being sent to Israel by commercial cargo got stuck in transit in South Korea due to the Israel-Hamas conflict. However, the problem was being resolved and “solution is being sought to ensure timely trials of the system”.

The delay in LR-SAM system has resulted in increased cost for at least two projects of the Directorate of Naval Design. While the construction of INS Kolkata by Mazgaon Docks Limited was initially supposed to cost Rs 3,580 crore, but after four-year delay the project cost increased to Rs 11,662 crore. The other project — construction of INS Kamorta by Garden Reach Ship Builders and Engineers Ltd, which is running two years behind schedule — would now likely cost Rs 7,800 crore instead of initial estimate of Rs 3,051 crore.

On August 16, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be commissioning INS Kolkata — the first of the Kolkata class destroyers for which the Navy boasts of having attained “60 per cent indigenisation”. This will be followed by the commissioning of INS Kamorta, an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) corvette, by Defence Minister Arun Jaitley. While INS Kolkata would be based off Mumbai coast and form part of the western fleet, INS Kamorta would operate out of its home base in Visakhapatnam on the eastern coast.

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