ISLAMABAD – To deepen defence cooperation, Britain has offered an aircraftcarrier similar to its biggest warship HMS Queen Elizabeth to India tobuild the copycat at any Indian shipyard.
British High Commissioner to India Dominic Asquith on Friday said HMS QueenElizabeth will soon operate in the Indian Ocean region on its maidenvoyage, Sputnik has reported.
“The relationship between the Royal Navy and Indian Navy presentsopportunities for cooperation, ranging from safety to electric propulsionto cooperation on aircraft carriers”, the British High Commissioner toldthe press here.
Sources indicate that an Indian delegation had already visited RosythDockyard in Scotland, which is where the second Queen Elizabethlinkaircraft — HMS Prince of Wales — is now being assembled.
Elaborating on the requirement of three aircraft carriers, the Indian Navychief said with the availability of additional aircraft only the Navy willbe able to deploy at least one operational carrier on either seaboard atany given time, “especially in light of the increasing mandate of IndianNavy in the Indian Ocean Region”.
Currently, the Indian Navy has a single aircraft carrier of Russian-originVikramaditya and a second aircraft carrier may be commissioned in the next24 months.
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Admiral Singh has also indicated that the Navy would prefer to build a65,000-tonne vessel, possibly with electric propulsion and CATOBAR(Catapult Assisted Take off but Arrested Recovery).
The British High Commissioner also declared that a liaison officer will bestationed at the Indian Navy’s Information Fusion Centre (IFC) for theIndian Ocean Region.
IFC was established with the vision of strengthening maritime security inthe Indian Ocean Regionlinkandbeyond, by building a common coherent maritime situation picture and actingas a maritime information hub for the region.
London also said that the 2021 bilateral naval exercise with the IndianNavy could be the most complex and sophisticated so far. The head of the UKMinistry of Defence’s civil division will arrive in India later this month.
