Maharashtra gets INS Viraat for maritime museum project

INS Viraat served the Indian Navy for 30 years. File pic

After much debate and planning, the decommissioned aircraft carrier, INS Viraat, will be permanently moored off Sindhudurg district in Maharashtra, as a grand museum. The Maharashtra Cabinet on Thursday approved the plan and sanctioned R852 crore for the ambitious project. The museum will be yet another attraction in Sindhudurg which is the state's first officially tagged tourism district.

Three states - Maharashtra, Goa and Andhra Pradesh - were in the race for the Viraat maritime museum project. "The project will be located off the Nivati Rocks in the Malvan coast in Sindhudurg and the Defence Ministry has been intimated," said a statement from the Devendra Fadnavis government.

The project will be a public-private partnership. A committee headed by the chief secretary will execute the project. The British-made INS Viraat is currently docked in the Mumbai harbour after it was decommissioned on March 6, 2017, and it holds a Guinness World record for being the longest serving warship in the world.

INS Viraat served for 27 years in the British royal Navy, before being bought by the Indian Navy for which it worked 30 years. The warship was put in service in Operation Parakram between India and Pakistan and the Sri Lankan Peace-Keeping operation. Its last operational deployment was in the International Fleet Review in February 2016.

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