After 36 years of service, INS Ranjit decommissioned at Visakhapatnam

After serving 36 years for Indian Navy, INS Ranjit was decommissioned on Monday at the Naval base, Visakhapatnam. The ship was decommissioned at a solemn ceremony at the Naval Dockyard when the national flag, naval ensign and Commissioning Pennant were lowered.

INS Ranjit, the third of the five Kashin-class destroyers, it was commissioned on 15 September 1983 with Captain Vishnu Bhagwat at the helm and built by erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

The chief guest was Lieutenant Governor of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Admiral (Retd) Devendra Kumar Joshi, who was also a part of the commissioning crew. The ceremony was graced by 16 officers and 10 sailors from the commissioning crewand 23 erstwhile Commanding Officers.

"INS Ranjit has sailed for 2,190 days, covering over 7,43,000 nautical miles, equivalent to navigating around the world 35 times and 3.5 times the distance from the earth to the moon", the statement said.

The ship has served both western and eastern seaboard and has been at the forefront of major naval operations. It participated in  IPKF operations and Operation Talwar during the Kargil conflict. And the ship was also participated in relief operations such as Tsunami in 2004 and cyclone Hud-Hud in 2014.