The Defense Ministry in a high-level meeting on Friday has approved the construction of six state-of-the-art submarines for the Indian Navy at a cost of about Rs 43,000 crore. With the availability of 6 conventional modern submarines, there will be a big increase in the strength of the Indian Navy. The Defense Ministry has approved the construction of six state-of-the-art submarines for the Indian Navy.
This decision has been taken with the aim of bridging the gap with China’s increasing naval prowess. China has 15 percent of the world’s submarines, whose number is about 75. Whereas India has about 15 submarines with three percent of the world’s submarines and after the construction of these 6 new submarines, India will have 18 submarines.
Official sources said on Friday that the Defense Acquisition Council, headed by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, gave the nod to the project.
He said that the request for proposal for indigenous construction of six submarines for the Indian Navy would be issued soon.
The two companies for which the RFP has been issued are Mazagon Docks (MDL) and private shipbuilder Larsen & Toubro (L&T). The project is under the strategic partnership model where Indian companies MDL and L&T will tie up with one of the 5 selected overseas shipyards to submit their bids.
Project 75-India is an ambitious project of the Indian Navy under which the Navy wants to build six conventional diesel-electric submarines.
These submarines are to be built keeping in mind the future war plans and will be bigger than the Scorpene class submarines under construction at Mazagon Dockyards Limited in Mumbai.
These stealth submarines will be equipped with heavy-duty firepower as per the requirements of the Navy. It will be equipped with at least 12 Land Attack Cruise Missiles (LACM) as well as Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles (ASCM).
The Navy has stated that the submarines should be capable of carrying and launching 18 heavyweight torpedoes at sea, media reports said. The front line of these stealth submarines has the required firepower many times higher than that of the Scorpene.
