INS Chapal museum handed over to TMC

The district Bal Bhavan Committee of Uttara Kannada has finally given up the responsibility of maintaining the country’s only maritime museum located on the picturesque Rabindranath Tagore Beach here. The responsibility has now been handed over to the Karwar City Municipality. 

The decision came after DNA first reported the bad condition of the main attraction of the museum INS Chapal, an Osa II Class Russian-built missile boat, which had become a part of the this museum after being decommissioned in May 2005. It had served the Indian Navy for 24 years and was part of the 1971 war against Pakistan.

But ever since it became a museum piece, it had only one maintenance schedule — in 2009. The captain’s cabin, open bridge, and the first officer’s cabin are leaking and the deck of the ship was creaking as people walked on it.

But despite the bad condition, the boat has earned Rs26 lakh in the past four years from gate collections.  

The ship was closed to public during the last extended weekend as the power supply was cut due to non-payment of bills of Rs19,000. The visitors returned without seeing it.

The deputy commissioner's office had asked the Kadamba Naval Base to maintain it but there was no reply from them. But when DNA published the story on May 5, 2011 about the bad condition of the ship, the deputy commissioner took notice and decided to hand over the maintenance of the ship to the Karwar City Municipality which has better resources to take up the job.