New Navy destroyer to be named after Goa port

 Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's home state of Goa is set to find a permanent place in India’s naval history as the Navy’s next destroyer would be named INS Mormugao, after the state’s main port.

On September 17, INS Mormugao will set sail from Mazgaon dock in Mumbai for sea trial, which is likely to continue for close to two years before the 7300-tonne warship with Barak-8 long-range missiles is inducted into the Navy.

The ship has been named after Goa's picturesque main port, which featured in several movies.

From the days of the Portuguese and the Sultans of Bijapur, the port city has a rich history, which the Navy felt would put the Goan city in the same league as Kochi or Mysuru, which found a place in the Navy’s hall of fame.

Almost 15 years ago, when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government cleared indigenous construction of a large number of guided missile destroyers with advanced features as a follow up to the Delhi-class destroyers, it was planned to name them after state capitals like Kolkata and Chennai.

The scheme was later modified by the UPA government that also incorporated coastal cities into the nomenclature.

As a result, the first three ships under the Project-15A were named as INS Kolkata, INS Kochi and INS Chennai. The first ship, INS Kolkata, was commissioned in August 2014.

Since both Kolkata and Chennai are also important ports, besides being state capitals, they fit the nomenclature either way.

In the next batch, four ships under Project-15B are planned at a cost of Rs 29,345 crore. The first one, INS Visakhapatnam, was launched in April 2015 and will be commissioned by 2018.

INS Mormugao is the next one in the line, to be followed by INS Paradip (representing Odisha), while the last ship in the series would be named after a coastal city in Gujarat, which has the longest coastline among the states.