London: The UK is in talks with the Indian Govt on building a new state-of-the-art aircraft carrier along the lines of Britain’s HMS Queen Elizabeth as part of the ongoing ‘Make in India’ negotations, a media report said. The talks are on for the Indian Navy to buy detailed plans for the 65,000-ton British warship to build a so-called “copycat supercarrier” to be named INS Vishal in 2022.
“An Indian delegation has already visited Rosyth dockyard in Scotland where HMS Queen Elizabeth was assembled and where a second supercarrier, HMS Prince of Wales, is now being built,” the Sunday Mirror reported.“If a deal can be agreed, the new warship would be built in India but UK companies could supply many of the parts,” it claims.
The report notes that such a new Naval carrier would serve alongside India’s 45,000-ton carrier INS Vikramaditya—bought from Russia in 2004—and the future 40,000-ton INS Vikrant and could give India a larger carrier fleet than Britain. “We have regular discussions with India on a range of equipment and capability issues. It would be inappropriate to comment further,” British Defence Minister Stuart Andrew said, while declining to comment on the reports.
