New Delhi, July 24 - The Indian Navy's purchase of the Russian-built aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, already mired in controversy, has been criticised by the Comptroller and Audit General (CAG) as the 'second-hand' warhorse will be 60 percent costlier than a new one and there is a risk of further delay in its delivery.

'The objective of inducting an aircraft carrier in time to fill the gap in Indian Navy has not been achieved,' the CAG said in its annual report released Friday.

'The cost of acquisition has more than doubled to USD 1.82 billion in four years. At best Indian Navy would be acquiring, belatedly, a second-hand ship with a limited life span by paying significantly more than what it would have paid for a new ship,' it said.

The purchase of Admiral Gorshkov faced controversy when Russia escalated the price for its refitting in 2007 and also pushed back its delivery date.

According to the CAG report, the platform is scheduled to be delivered by 2012 and would be due for its second refit in India by 2017.

Moreover, the CAG report predicts that the Russian shipyard might as well fail to stick to the scheduled delivery date.

'Overall work progress continued to be slow and needed to be accelerated to meet even the revised scheduled.