Ten months after it sank, Indian Naval Submarine (INS) Sindhurakshak was finally salvaged and brought to surface on Thursday. The entire operation lasted four months, after the Indian Navy awarded the contract to salvage the submarine to a private company on January 31.
In what is considered to be Indian Navy's biggest disaster, on August 14, 2013, an accident on board Sindhurakshak resulted in the vessel exploding and sinking to the bottom of the sea. It also resulted in 18 naval officers losing their lives and several others getting injured.
The navy had signed a contract with Resolve Salvage and Fire (Indian) Private Limited.
A defence source said, "The submarine was finally brought to the surface after four months of efforts by the salvage company. The vessel will be first put on a pontoon. It appears that the company will take two more weeks to bring the submarine on dry dock."
"Once the submarine is brought to the dry dock, the salvaging company will hand it over to the naval dockyard. After this, experts and forensic officials will examine it to see if it can be repaired," the source added.
Another source said, "Chances of repairing Sindhurakshak appear very bleak because it was lying on the seabed for almost 10 months. Most of the body would have been damaged due to erosion. Another reason is that a majority of its parts and body would also have been damaged due to the heavy explosions that took place that day."
The cost of the operation sanctioned by the navy was around Rs200 crore. The Western Naval Command had constituted an empowered committee headed by a vice admiral rank officer to conclude the contract. Commodore rank officers were in the committee and the captain was given the charge of bringing the contract file to the authority concerned for the process.
Seven companies, including a few Indians firms, which specialise in salvage operations, had come forward for the work.
