Chennai: Nearly after three years of remaining afloat at Chennai port and for sometime at Mamallapuram near here, since it was handed over to the state government in March 2013 by Indian Navy, the decommissioned warhorse INS Vagli submarine is likely to be returned to its owner.
The move will be a setback to the ambitious project of establishing the Tamil Nadu Maritime Heritage Museum near Mamallapuram Shore Temple.
The vessel was towed to Mamallapuram on April 6, 2014 and efforts by a contractor to haul up the submarine on to the shore using steel plates and airbags failed.
On April 21, the same year, it was brought back to Chennai harbour and lay anchored here since then. Though a channel of about 100 metres was dug to ensure easy movement of the submarine from the high seas to the shore, the channel got filled with sludge and as a result plans to berth the vessel was abandoned.
“Technically, only the Indian navy has the expertise to transport this 91 m long submarine and similar vessels and other logistics in erecting a museum with it. None among the private contractors were capable of towing the vessel to the shore safely,” an official at the Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation (TTDC) said.
The museum was expected to be established on 30 acres belonging to TTDC at Mamallapuram and was scheduled to be readied by mid 2015. This Foxtrot class submarine was inducted into service by the then Lieutenant Commander Lalit Talwar on August 10, 1974 at Riga, Latvia, in erstwhile Soviet Union. It was decommissioned by Indian Navy on December 9, 2010 in Visakhapatnam after completing 36 years of service under 23 commanding officers.
