New Delhi, March 22, 2005 (TOI)

The long wait for an indigenous aircraft carrier is now finally over. India's most ambitious ship-building project, a 37,500-metric ton Air Defence Ship (ADS) for the Navy, will get underway next month.

"The steel cutting of ADS will take place at Cochin Shipyard on April 11. India will then join a very elite group of nations (US, UK, Russia and France) capable of designing and building an aircraft carrier," Navy vice-chief Vice-Admiral Yashwant Prasad said on Tuesday.

But the Navy will have to wait till 2012 before the ADS is ready for induction into service.

It will be capable of operating Russian MiG-29Ks, naval version of the indigenous LCA-Tejas, Sea Harriers, Advanced Light Helicopters and anti-submarine and maritime reconnaissance Kamov-31 helicopters.

Though the Navy wants three aircraft carriers to emerge as the most potent strategic force in the entire Indian Ocean region over the next decade, it's making do with only one, INS Viraat, at the moment. The Navy will try to run this ageing carrier till 2010.

"A virtually new INS Vikramaditya (the new name for the 44,570-tonne Admiral Gorshkov undergoing a refit in Russia), with its complement of 16 MiG-29K jet fighters, will also join the force towards the end of 2008," said Vice-Admiral Prasad.

It is only after 2012, with both Vikramaditya and ADS operating on the high seas, that the Navy will explore the option for a "follow-on" carrier to be built indigenously.

The 252-metre-long ADS, for which the government sanctioned Rs 3,261 crore in January 2003, will have two runways with ski-jumps and a landing strip with three arrester wires. The flight deck will roughly be 2.5 acre.

With 160 officers and 1,400 sailors, the ADS will able to carry 12 MiG-29Ks, eight LCA and 10 helicopters. Powered by four LM2500 gas turbines generating 80 MW, the carrier will be able to attain a maximum speed of 28 knots and be operationally deployed for 45 days at a stretch.

One of the main hurdles for the ADS project, conceived over a decade ago, was getting the right quality of 20,000 tonnes of steel for it. The traditional supplier, Russia, was not found up to the mark.