NEW DELHI: India is now prepared to kick off the procedure for its long-pending Rs 50,000 crore endeavor to domestically assemble six new-generation stealth submarines with overseas cooperation, in what’s known as the’mother of underwater fight deals’.
The Rajnath Singh-led defence acquisitions council (DAC) on Friday is set to accept the RFP (request for proposal) to be issued to defence shipyard Mazagon Docks (MDL) and personal ship-builder L&T.
Both have been shortlisted for its diesel-electric submarine-building programme known as’Project-75 India (P-75I)’ following a long-drawn procedure.
Defence ministry resources on Thursday reported the DAC, that is being held after a very long gap because of this Covid pandemic, will take the first’approval of requirement’ (AoN) to its $3 billion program to get 30 weaponized SeaGuardian or even MQ-9 Reaper/Predator dronesfrom that US in a subsequent stage.
TOI was the very first to report that the strategy to get the 30’hunter-killer’ drones — 10 each for the Army, IAF and Navy — however, that the large costs involved has resulted in a delay until today.
The Navy, meanwhile, is currently utilizing 2 thirds Sea Guardian drones for surveillance missions across the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) following renting them in US company General Atomics past November.
For the time being, P-75I is currently on the DAC schedule since the initial project to be established under the strategic venture (SP) plan, that has been promulgated by the NDA government in May 2017 below the entire”Earn in India” platform.
P-75I to construct the six newest submarines, together with equally land-attack cruise missiles and also air-independent propulsion for larger underwater endurance, was initially allowed AoN style back in November 2007.
When the RFP is currently issued, both Indian’strategic partners (SPs)’,” MDL and L&T, will probably tie-up with among the five chosen foreign shipyards to fulfill their financial and technical requirements.
They’re Rosoboronexport/Rubin Design Bureau (Russia), Naval Group-DCNS (France), ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (Germany), Navantia (Spain) and Daewoo (South Korea).
With Chinese warships today making regular forays into the IOR, the Navy urgently needs brand new submarines, both traditional and nuclear-powered.
It takes no less than a decade from today for the very first submarine to roll out beneath P-75I.
Beneath the more than 23,000 crore’Project-75′ Released at MDL, three of those six French-origin Scorpene submarines are commissioned until today.
The Navy now has only 12 additional ageing diesel-electric submarines, using only half of these usable at any given period plus yet another likely to retire this season.
India also contains two nuclear-powered submarines, INS Arihant along with INS Chakra, however the latter doesn’t possess nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles as it’s been obtained on rental from Russia.
As was reported by TOI, an additional job to construct six nuclear-powered attack submarines (known as SSNs) is impending with the Cabinet Committee on Security for its last nod.
The building of all of those six SSNs, every weighing 6,000-tonne and costing approximately Rs 15,000 crore, is very likely to be removed in the first move.
According to approved programs, India requires at least 18 traditional submarines, six SSNs and four nuclear-powered submarines using nuclear-tipped missiles (SSBNs) such as INS Arihant.