Naval Group, a major French submarine maker, has pulled out of India’s Project 75 (I) ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to France. The French media gave this information quoting the Naval Group.
The Naval Group has mentioned the conditions in the request for proposal (RFP) as the reason for exiting the project.
The Ministry of Defence had in July last year issued an order to build six submarines for the Indian Navy.
The cost of this project named Project 75 (India) is Rs 43,000 crore.
In his first trip abroad this year, Prime Minister Modi will embark on a three-day visit to Germany, Denmark and France from May 2.
The RFP was sent to five big companies, including France’s Naval Group-DCNS, Russia’s Rosoboronexport, Germany’s Thyssenkrupp, Spain’s Navantia and South Korea’s Daewoo, around the world for the Project 75 (I).
These five companies had to choose between two Indian companies, Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) or Larsen & Toubro (L&T), to manufacture these six submarines in India.
All three European and Russian companies have now pulled out of this project, leaving only Navantia and Daewoo in the race.
The Naval Group is making six Scorpène-class submarines in collaboration with MDL.
Of these, four, the Kalvari-class submarines, have joined the Navy, the fifth is under sea-trial and the sixth Vagsheer was launched earlier this month.
The Ministry of Defence had in April 2021 cleared the way for the construction of six new stealth submarines for the Indian Navy amid the challenges being faced by China in the Indian Ocean.
The Defence Acquisition Council headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had given the green signal to Project 75 (I) under the Strategic Partnership Model.
The ministry had post that in July 2021 issued RFP for six conventional stealth submarines under this project.
As this project will be completed under the Strategic-Partnership model, the Defence Ministry had also issued the RFP to MDL and L&T.
The provision was to build these six conventional submarines in the country only in a joint venture with a foreign company.
These are six conventional submarines of course, but they are AIP ie Air-Independent Propulsion Submarine.
The advantage of this is that they will not need to get out of the sea again and again like a diesel-electric submarine. That is, in a way, they are stealth-submarines.
These six submarines are Air Independent Propulsion.
Air Independent Propulsion or Air Independent Power is any marine propulsion technology that allows non-nuclear submarines to operate without access to atmospheric oxygen. The advantage of this is that these stealth-submarines do not need to be taken out of the sea like the diesel-electric submarines.
