submarines will be built locally, bringing the South Asian nation one step closer to achieving the goals of its 30-year submarine construction programme that was launched back in 1999.
“This would be one of the largest ‘Make in India’ projects and will serve to facilitate faster and more significant absorption of technology and create a tiered industrial ecosystem for submarine construction in India,” the Defence Ministry said in a statement. “From a strategic perspective, this will help reduce current dependence on imports and gradually ensure greater self-reliance.”
According to the Ministry, this will be a landmark project that will be processed under the Strategic Partnership (SP) model, which aims at providing a major boost to the indigenous design and construction capability of submarines in India. Under this model, selected Indian strategic partners will collaborate with a foreign original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in order to set up a production facility in the country.
In January last year the Defence Ministry cleared two Indian strategic partners, namely, Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited and L&T, who are permitted to collaborate with five foreign shipbuilders from France, Germany, Russia, Spain and South Korea, for P-75I, the second project that was undertaken under the SP Model.
According to the statement, the new submarines will be equipped with air independent propulsion (AIP) systems that will enable the watercrafts to stay underwater for longer periods, thereby enhancing their combat capabilities. “The availability of new technologies and advanced manufacturing capabilities to the industry will be an important step towards enhancing the nation’s quest for self-reliance in modern conventional submarine construction,” the statement read.
According to officials, if all goes well, the first submarine will be delivered within the next 10 years.
