Mumbai: India’s first aircraft carrier, which was retired from service, remains unsold at the e-auction in Mumbai on December 17.
The auction followed the Navy’s decision to sell the oldest aircraft carrier as scrap. It planned to convert the iconic ship into maritime museum-cum-marine adventure. However, the Centre didn’t find any taker.
“Since the ship remained unsold as the bids were not on the expected rates, fresh e-auction will be conducted again,” said an official privy to the developments.
Interested bidders were required to pay a pre-bid earnest money deposit of Rs 5.30 crore. The e-auction commenced at noon, continued till late evening before being called off.
Last November, the Maharashtra government cleared a proposal to convert the longest-serving aircraft carrier into a commercial business complex. According to the proposal submitted by the state government to the Union Defence Ministry, the planned Viraat museum would be constructed by laying a concrete foundation in the sea and the location is around seven nautical miles from the shore at Nivti rocks in Sindhudurg district.
A high power committee, headed by the chief secretary was formed to finalise the terms and conditions for tenders to select a private entrepreneur. “The project was supposed to be developed along with a private partner but there were no takers, hence the proposal was scrapped and the same was communicated to the defence ministry, following which the decision to scrap the ship was taken,” said an official.
The ship holds the mention in Guinness Book of World Records for being the longest serving warship of the world. Under the Indian flag, the ship clocked more than 22,622 flying hours by various aircraft and spent nearly 2,252 days at sea sailing and sailed 5,88,287 NM (10,94,215 KM). This implies Viraat has spent seven years at sea, covering the entire globe 27 times.
