You’ve seen the city. Now here’s the warship. (Picture as visualised by designers of the Corps of Naval Constructors)

But Kolkata is not being built in Calcutta. It’s going to sail from Mumbai.

“The INS Kolkata (Project 15A) will be a state-of-the-art stealth destroyer,” said the principal director of naval design, Commodore K.N. Vaidyanathan.

INS Kolkata is being built in Mumbai’s Mazagon Docks. Calcutta’s own Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) has its hands full. Besides, it is configured to build a smaller class of ships.

Mazagon Docks has built INS Kolkata’s predecessors of the Delhi-class (INS Delhi, INS Mysore and INS Mumbai). But INS Kolkata — Project 15 Alpha — is more advanced and more complex. It will also fit the gas turbines for the huge 6,800-tonne ship.

INS Kolkata is expected to be commissioned in 2010. Naval designers began building it in March this year. Its “stealth” characteristics will make it difficult for detection by radar and are designed to make the ship “blend with its background”.

The surfaces of the ship will be inclined — so that radar signals do not bounce off and make its signature easily recordable.

It is likely to be armed with 16 Brahmos anti-ship cruise missiles, four AK-630 rapid fire guns, 48 long range Surface to Air Missiles, twin-tube torpedo launchers and anti-submarine rocket launchers. It will be propelled by four gas turbines. The warship will have a top speed of 30 knots per hour.

INS Kolkata is the largest and most complex of the 35 ships that the navy has ordered, only four of which are to be imported, said Captain C S Rao, director of naval design.

The Corps of Naval Constructors will celebrate its golden jubilee on November 17 2006.