Government of India has given nod to commence the process of building six advanced submarines in India, in collaboration with German naval companies, as per the provisions of Project 75. As per the statement by Defence Ministry officials, state-owned Mazagaon Dockyards Ltd. and ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, a German-based firm will commence the further talks by the end of this month with respect to the construction of the advanced submarines. It will take another six months to finalize the contract.
The project aims to accomplish the dual goal of modernizing, expanding & strengthening Indian Navy’s submarine fleet along with boosting indigenous defence capabilities in designing and manufacturing conventional submarines. The deal with the German company is of Rs. 70,000 crore worth.
The proposed submarine will also have Air Independent Propulsion Sytems(AIP), that enables them to remain submerged upto three weeks. Indeed these advanced submarines will carve out as a futuristic naval fleet, thus strengthening India’s security architecture in the Indian Ocean Region(IOR) and the larger maritime domain that aids to successfully counter emerging threats.
Project 75: A path to build indigenous submarines
Project-75 is an ambitious defence project of the Government of India that envisions constructing indigenous submarines etched with state-of-the-art technologies such as Air Independent Propulsion Systems.
In 2017, Project 75 was enabled with strategic partnership model. Accordingly, domestic manufacturers can collaborate with leading foreign defence manufacturing units to build cutting-edge technology submarines. This move is a major leap in the path of Make in India goal of the country. Infact, Project 75, is one of the largest Make in India projects.
The six submarines built under Project 75 are the Kalvari-class submarines. It includes,
- INS Kalvari-commissioned in 2017
- INS Khanderi-commissioned in 2019
- INS Kharanj-commissioned in 2021
- INS Vela-commissioned in 2021
- INS Vagir-delivered in 2022
- INS Vagsheer-delivered in 2025
Indian Navy plans to replace approximately 10 ageing submarines over the next decade. The latest deal with the German company to build an advanced conventional submarine, will help in replacing the old submarines along with latest technological additions. Meanwhile, India is also working towards building more nuclear submarines that has more operational efficiency and prolonged submergence capacity apart from the aforementioned conventional submarine. Currently, India has only two operational nuclear ballistic submarines INS Arihant and INS Arighat.
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