If the Dakshina Kannada (DK) administration in Karnataka has its way, INS Viraat, the country's warship commissioned in 1987, will be brought here to set up an aircraft carrier museum.
The Defence Ministry is planning to decommission the warship in 2016. The plan is to convert INS Viraat into an aircraft carrier museum.
The DK administration had already sent a proposal to the state government to set up the museum here as it was an ideal location in the west coast for the project for various reasons.
In his letter to Chief Secretary Kaushik Mukherjee and Principal Secretary to Karnataka Infrastructure Development Vanditha Sharma, DK deputy commissioner A B Ibrahim said the port here had a long history of warfare, and the city was well connected by rail, road, sea and air to the rest of the world. The city had a population of five lakh while the district had a 20 lakh population, he said.
Expressing the district's interest to bring INS Viraat to Mangaluru shores, he said the port here had a history of more than 2,000 years and was known as a good naval facility with naval warfare of Dutch, Portugese, British, with local kings, including Rani Abbakka of Ullal and Tipu Sultan of Mysuru.
If the museum was set up in Mangaluru, it would create curiosity towards defence forces and help promote patriotism among youths of the region, he said in the letter.
The coastline here and the banks of the Gurupura and Nethravati rivers encircling the city would be an ideal location to the INS Viraat aircraft carrier museum.
"It can be berthed either on the Bengre Sand Pit area or in mainland. Even a floating one can also be explored in the Nethravati river for the ship, measuring approximately around 10,000 sq m," Ibrahim said.
The department of archaeology or tourism may take up the responsibility of maintaining the museum, he added.
Ibrahim requested the Chief Secretary to send the proposal to the Flag Officer Commanding, Karnataka Naval Area and to the Defence Ministry at the earliest.
Goa and Andhra Pradesh were also in the race to bring the project to their states, he said.
