Timeline For Commissioning Six Indian Scorpene Submarines

Indian Navy has prepared timeline for commissioning six French-designed Scorpene submarines.

The first two vessels are expected to be commissioned by end of the year, Press Trust of India reported Sunday.

The Kalvari, the first of the highly-advanced submarines, is set for induction by middle of this year as the complex process of integrating it with missiles and weapons system was nearing completion, a Top Navy official said.

The submarines are being built at the Mazagon Dock Ltd in Mumbai with technology from French defence major DCNS under a project called P-75 at a cost of around $ 3.5 billion.

As per the plan, the second submarine Khanderi will be inducted into the Navy fleet by end of 2017 and thereafter each vessel will be commissioned at an interval of nine months.

In August 2016, over 20,000 confidential pages of the submarine's manual were leaked by Australian media, stirring up a controversy about the impact to India's ambitions of fielding a blue-water navy. Though it triggered apprehensions that the leak may compromise the stealth capabilities of the vessels, DCNS responded that those documents were not crucial.

The Scorpène-class submarines are a class of diesel-electric attack submarines jointly developed by the French Direction des Constructions Navales (DCN) and the Spanish company Navantia, and now by DCNS. It features diesel propulsion and an additional air-independent propulsion (AIP).