Rajya Sabha member Priyanka Chaturvedi has written to the Defence Ministry saying the Maharashtra Government is “happy to cooperate in restoring and preserving the historical ship” INS Viraat, which served as India’s aircraft carrier. “It was with great sadness and concern [that] I read that the scrapping of the historic INS Viraat has been initiated at Alang in Gujarat,” Chaturvedi, the Shiv Sena MP wrote in her letter to Defence Minister Rajtanth Singh.
The letter, which asks the Defence Ministry for a no-objection certificate to preserve Viraat, comes at a time when the decommissioned warship is being pulled ashore by a ship-breaker in Alang before it is destroyed for scrap.
“We as a nation must use our decommissioned naval ships to help citizens to better understand the significance of India’s maritime history. It saddens me further to note that though there is an offer to convert the warship into a maritime museum, it awaits a no-objection certificate from the Ministry of Defence for transfer of the warship,” Chauturvedi said.
The letter comes following series of media reports which highlighted the plight of Viraat, the decommissioned Indian Navy warship which was India’s flagship for several decades and came to define India’s maritime power. Before being commissioned into the Indian Navy in 1986, Viraat served as HMS Hermes in the Royal Navy where she fought with distinction in the Falkland Islands war in 1982 in the south Atlantic.