Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday lauded the Indian Navy during the commissioning of two advanced stealth frigates — INS Udaygiri and INS Himgiri — at the Eastern Naval Command in Visakhapatnam.
“Today you have launched the indigenous F-35 warship. One nation has a flying F-35, and you have built a floating F-35, that too Made in India,” Singh said, highlighting the Navy’s growing strength.
He added that these warships possess advanced weapons and sensor packages, making them “unparalleled guardians of the sea.” The vessels are equipped with:
- Supersonic BrahMos surface-to-surface missiles
- Medium-range surface-to-air missiles
- Torpedo launchers
- Combat management and fire control systems
“These modern vessels will be game-changers in complex and risky maritime operations,” Singh said. Notably, INS Udaygiri marks the 100th ship designed by the Navy’s Warship Design Bureau (WDB), a milestone in five decades of indigenous warship design.
The frigates are follow-on ships of the Project 17A (Shivalik-class) series, incorporating significant improvements in stealth, design, weapons, and sensor systems for full-spectrum maritime missions in blue-water conditions.
- INS Udaygiri: Built by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL), Mumbai; fastest ship of her class delivered post-launch using modular construction methodology.
- INS Himgiri: Built by Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE), Kolkata; first P17A ship from this yard.
Displacing ~6,700 tons, these P17A frigates are about 5% larger than their Shivalik-class predecessors, featuring a sleeker design with reduced radar cross-section. Their weapons suite also includes 76 mm MR Gun and a combination of 30 mm and 12.7 mm close-in weapon systems, mostly developed by Indian manufacturers.
The Indian Navy posted on X: “Two state-of-the-art combatant platforms join the Indian Navy fleet, fortifying India’s strength at sea.”
With agency inputs
