INS Rajput, the first destroyer ship of the Indian Navy, is set to be decommissioned from service on Friday after 41 years of service. The then USSR-produced ship was commissioned on May 4, 1980 for the first time. It has served the Indian Navy for more than 41 years.
INS Rajput will be decommissioned in a ceremony at the Naval Dockyard, Visakhapatnam. Owing to the ongoing COVID pandemic, the ceremony will be a low-key event, which will be attended only by the in-station officers and sailors, with strict observance of COVID protocols.
It is the first destroyer of the Indian Navy and was the ship that led the Kashin-class destroyers.
INS Rajput was constructed in the 61 Communards Shipyard in Nikolaev (present-day Ukraine) under her original Russian name `Nadezhny` meaning `Hope`.
The keel of the ship was laid on 11 Sep 1976 and it was launched on 17 Sep 1977. The ship was commissioned as INS Rajput on 04 May 1980 at Poti, Georgia by IK Gujral, the Ambassador of…