Hope floats for Viraat as firm awaits nod for changing title

    Mumbai, Sep 29 (PTI) Decommissioned aircraft carrier
Viraat has been beached at Alang in Gujarat for scrapping, but
a company is making last-ditch efforts to salvage the symbol
of India's rich maritime heritage.
    An official of the company said it has reached an
understanding with the Shree Ram Group which bought the iconic
warship for Rs 38.54 crore in an auction conducted by the
Metal Scrap Trade Corporation Limited.
    A top management figure of the Group said it is ready
to hand over Viraat to the company at a cost after the Defence
Ministry changes the ship's title from "scrap" to "preserve".
    "While key political leaders, including those in Delhi
and Goa are fully supportive of our patriotic endeavour to
preserve the country's maritime legacy by turning it into a
museum, some bureaucrats are hindering the proposal," the
company official told PTI.
    The company plans to convert Viraat into a maritime
museum in coastal Goa and claims Minister of State for Defence
Shripad Naik is fully supportive of the plan.
    An official from Naik's office said the minister wants
the ship to be saved from being dismantled and sold as scrap.
    Many in the Indian Navy want the ship to be turned
into a museum.
    "India Inc to the rescue? Understand pvt party has
undertaken to convert Viraat into maritime memorial/museum at
own expense & obtained approval of Goa govt to park her in
Zuari River. Race against time for MoD approval before ship is
permanently beached on 30th Sep." tweeted former Navy chief
Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd).
    "Off Alang, the forlorn, but still majestic, carrier
is a moving sight, for all of us. But far more soul-stirring
for VAdm Vinod Pasricha, the Captain who saw her through
conversion in the UK and then commissioned her as INS Viraat
and sailed her triumphantly home in 1987!" he added.
    David Campbell Bannerman, a British Conservative Party
politician who served as Member of the European Parliament,
tweeted, "It would be wonderful news if the former HMS
Hermes/INS Viraat can now be preserved as a naval museum at
the 11.59th hour. It is the oldest serving warship in the
world according to @GWR and is very dear to both of our great
nations, to us as the Falklands War Flagship."
    Viraat, the worlds longest serving warship that was
decommissioned by the Indian Navy three years ago, arrived at
Alang in Gujarat from Mumbai last week for dismantling.
    It is the second aircraft carrier slated to be broken
down in India. In 2014, INS Vikrant was dismantled in Mumbai.
    The 70-year-old aircraft carrier, in its earlier
avatar, had won the Falklands War against Argentina in 1982
for the Royal British Navy.
    It weighs about 27,800 tonnes and served the British
Navy as HMS Hermes from November 1959 to April 1984 and after
refurbishment, was commissioned into the Indian Navy in 1987.
    The vessel, which was anchored around seven nautical
miles from Alang, was towed and beached on Monday during the
high tide. PTI VT
VT VT

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)