Indigenous Air Cushion Vehicle H-561 Inducted into Indian Coast Guard

The Indian Coast Guard has taken delivery of its first indigenous Air Cushion Vehicle, the hovercraft H-561, at a ceremony in Goa on 18 June. It is the lead craft of six ordered from Chowgule and Company Private Limited.

The induction was held at the builder's Rassaim facility, with senior Coast Guard officers and shipbuilding industry representatives present.

A hovercraft built in Bharat

H-561 has been designed and built in India, a marker of the country's widening maritime industrial base and of the push to source critical platforms at home under Aatmanirbhar Bharat.

Hovercraft fill a narrow but awkward gap in the service's order of battle. Riding on a cushion of air, they move over mudflats, shallow creeks and tidal stretches that keep deeper draught patrol boats out, which is why the Coast Guard has long valued them along the marshy approaches of the Gujarat coast and other low water reaches it has to watch.

Indigenous Air Cushion Vehicle joins the coastal fleet

The new indigenous Air Cushion Vehicle joins an existing hovercraft fleet the service uses for shallow water patrol, search and rescue, and creek interdiction.

The Ministry of Defence said in its release that the induction would sharpen the Coast Guard's effectiveness across a range of maritime duties and its response to emerging challenges at sea.

Ministry of Defence post on the induction of H-561

Six craft on order

The Ministry of Defence has contracted six air cushion vehicles in all from Chowgule and Company. H-561 is the first to commission.

Chowgule and the Goa build

Chowgule and Company runs the build out of its yard in Goa, where the rest of the order is taking shape. The programme sits alongside other Made in India platform milestones the government has moved on through the year.

A maritime force under modernisation

The Coast Guard has kept adding hulls and capability in step with the wider maritime build up the Ministry of Defence has set out. For now H-561 is the only one of the six in service, with the rest still under construction at the Goa yard.