Indian Navy Project P-75(I): In a major boost for local defence industry, India’s ministry of defence Tuesday issued the request for proposal (RFP) to two Indian naval yards for construction of six AIP fitted conventional attack submarines in the country under Project P-75(I). In turn, these two shipbuilders – state owned Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders and private sector Indian defence company Laresen & Toubro – will choose one strategic partner from the five submarines builders shortlisted by the government.
“The shortlisted strategic partners (SPs) to whom the RFP has been issued would be collaborating with any of the shortlisted foreign original equipment manufacturers – Naval Group of France, ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems of Germany, JSC ROE of Russia, Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Co Ltd of South Korea and Spanish shipbuilder Navantia,” the MoD said.
The project cost for building six submarines under the strategic partnership model has been estimated to be over Rs 40,000 crore.
Project P-75 (I)
Project-75 (India) envisages indigenous construction of six modern conventional submarines (including associated shore support, engineering support package, training and spares package) with contemporary equipment, weapons and sensors including fuel-cell based AIP (Air Independent Propulsion Plant), advanced torpedoes, modern missiles and state of the art countermeasure systems.
A German Navy submarine built by ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems.
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“This would provide a major boost to the indigenous design and construction capability of submarines in India, in addition to bringing in the latest submarine design and technologies as part of the project,” said the Defence Ministry.
After the receipt of responses to the Expression of Interest (EoI), short-listing of potential strategic partners (SPs) and Foreign OEMs was undertaken.
The MoD said the five shortlisted foreign firms, including Spanish shipbuilder Navantia and French Naval Group, were the world leaders in the field of conventional submarine design, construction and all other related technologies. The foreign OEMs will be the technology partner in the strategic partnership model.
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“Foreign OEMs will enable SP for construction of submarines, achieving high levels of indigenization, and ToT for various technologies. These OEMs would enable setting up of dedicated manufacturing lines for these submarines in India by providing ToT for submarine design and other technologies and make India the global hub for submarine design and production,” said the government.
Indian Navy Submarine at a shipyard.
The defence ministry said the project would not only aid in boosting the core submarine, ship building industry but would also greatly enhance manufacturing and industrial sector in the country, especially the MSME by development of an industrial eco-system for manufacture of associated spares, systems and equipment related to submarines.
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In the RFP, the government has introduced mandatory level of indigenous manufacture of platforms, transfer of technology for design, manufacture, maintenance of submarines and a few critical equipment and systems, setting up of an eco-system in India for such indigenisation and incentivisation for other key technologies, among other things.
The overall aim would be to progressively build indigenous capabilities in the public, private sector to design, develop and manufacture complex weapon systems for the future needs of the Armed Forces, said the government.
