Indian Coast Guard Ship Meera Behn Decommissioned at Okha After 20 Years of Service
Indian Coast Guard Ship (ICGS) Meera Behn was formally decommissioned with full Armed Forces honours at Okha Port in Gujarat on 22 August 2026, bringing to a close two decades of service on India’s western seaboard. The Ministry of Defence confirmed the vessel’s retirement, ending the operational life of a ship that had served as an important asset in coastal security and maritime surveillance.
The decommissioning ceremony was held under the command of Commandant (JG) Thinkal Tharakan and presided over by DIG Manjeet Singh Gill, Commander of Coast Guard District Headquarters No. 15 (Okha). The proceedings followed naval and Coast Guard tradition, including a Guard of Honour, the final hauling down of the Coast Guard Ensign, and the lowering of the Decommissioning Pennant. In remarks at the ceremony, DIG Gill paid tribute to the ship and its successive crews for their “yeoman service” in safeguarding India’s maritime domain for more than 20 years.
Built by Goa Shipyard Limited, ICGS Meera Behn carried pennant number 234 and was launched on 28 January 2006 before being commissioned on 25 July 2006. It belonged to the water-jet propelled Extra Fast Patrol Vessel class, a fleet of high-speed, agile ships designed for rapid operations in coastal and near-shore waters.
The class was built for speed, manoeuvrability and short-response missions. Its full displacement was about 270 tonnes, with a length of 48.14 metres, a beam of 7.5 metres and a draught of around 2 metres. The propulsion system comprised three MTU-Friedrichshafen 16V4000 M90 diesel engines, each rated at 2,720 kW, which drove three Kamewa 71SII water jets. The vessel could reach a maximum speed of 35 knots, had an endurance of 1,500 nautical miles and carried a complement of around 30 personnel, including five officers.
Those specifications made the XFPV class particularly suited to interception and rapid patrol duties in shallow and confined waters. The water-jet propulsion system allowed the vessels to operate effectively in coastal areas, while their speed supported missions ranging from anti-smuggling and anti-poaching operations to search and rescue, fisheries protection and maritime law enforcement. Sister ships in the series were named after prominent women freedom fighters and leaders, including Sarojini Naidu, Durgabai Deshmukh, Kasturba Gandhi, Aruna Asaf Ali, Subhadra Kumari Chauhan and Savitribai Phule.
The ship’s name carried a distinct historical and symbolic association. Meera Behn was the adopted name of Madeleine Slade, the British-born daughter of Rear Admiral Sir Edmond Slade of the Royal Navy. Born on 22 November 1892 in Surrey, England, she was inspired by Romain Rolland’s biography of Mahatma Gandhi and arrived in India in November 1925. Gandhi later gave her the name Mirabehn, meaning “Sister Mira,” after the 16th-century saint-poet Mirabai.
Meerabehn lived in Sabarmati and other ashrams, embraced simplicity and celibacy, spun khadi and became an active participant in the freedom struggle. She accompanied Gandhi to the Round Table Conference in London in 1931, was imprisoned during major campaigns including the Quit India Movement, and later worked on rural reconstruction and environmental causes. After spending nearly 34 years in India, she eventually moved to Europe and died in Vienna on 20 July 1982. The Coast Guard vessel’s name reflected the ideals of service, discipline and national commitment associated with her life.
Based at Okha under District Headquarters-15 in the North-West Region of the Indian Coast Guard, Meera Behn operated in one of the country’s most strategically sensitive maritime zones. The area covers parts of the Gujarat coast, the Gulf of Kutch and approaches to important sea routes. Okha also houses key Coast Guard infrastructure, including hovercraft units used to monitor the region’s shallow waters and scattered islands.
As one of the earlier indigenous Extra Fast Patrol Vessels, the ship contributed to the Coast Guard’s core responsibilities over a period when maritime security requirements were expanding. Its duties would have aligned with the service’s wider mandate, including coastal security, Exclusive Economic Zone surveillance, anti-smuggling operations, fisheries protection, search and rescue and pollution response. While the decommissioning statement did not provide specific mission totals for the vessel, ships of this class were an important part of the Coast Guard’s surface fleet, particularly in the years after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, when maritime domain awareness and coastal vigilance were strengthened across the system.
The retirement of Meera Behn also reflects the Indian Coast Guard’s ongoing fleet modernisation. Newer indigenous platforms such as the Adamya-class Fast Patrol Vessels, along with larger offshore patrol and pollution control vessels, are steadily replacing older ships that have completed their operational lifespan. After exactly 20 years in service from 2006 to 2026, the Okha ceremony formally ended the career of a vessel that combined operational usefulness with a name rooted in India’s freedom movement.
