India May Import Two Submarines Following Sindhurakshak Fire

India may import two submarines under the Project 75 (I) indigenous submarine building project to build six vessels, an RFP for which is expected in the next two-three months. An earlier plan to build all six in India with technical help from a foreign collaborator may be modified in the wake of the fire disaster aboard the INS Sindhurakshak last week which gutted the submarine killing and injuring several crew members.

Russia’s Rosoboronexport, France’s DCNS, Germany’s HDW could be among the contenders to supply the two submarines and help build the remaining four. DCNS is already collaborating with the Mumbai based Mazagaon Docks Limited (MDL) to build six submarines under the an earlier program called Project 75. The Times of India reported today that Indian defence minister A.K. Antony has “asked officials to expedite the 30-year submarine building plan, which was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) way back in July 1999”.

Under the 30 year submarine building plan, a total of 24 vessels were to be built. Six each under the Project 75 and Project 75 India and 12 to be built fully indigenously. The target for Project 75 was for the first vessels to be delivered by 2012 but there has been a slippage of four years at the minimum. Similarly, the project 75 India was to tied up in terms of  a foreign collaborator by 2012 but the tendering for this has not yet happened. The revised target for delivery of the first Project 75 submarine is now 2016.

But the fire in the INS Sindhurakshak submarine which is of Russian origin, may have jolted the Indian Navy and the government to wake up to the critical shortage of submarine assets which is needed to patrol India’s vast coastline what with China being in an Naval expansionist mode. At the time of the fire disaster, the INS Sindhurakshak was being prepared for a patrolling voyage.

The loss of a functional submarine has left the Indian Navy with 7 or 8 submarines, said the Times of India report with five or six submarines struck in various stages of repair, maintenance or upgrade.  The Indian CCS may approve the revised submarine acquisition plan over the next month or so, reports say.