After a three-year long renegotiation, the fresh price of Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier was on Wednesday finalised at USD 2.35 billion by the government, a day ahead of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s two-day visit to India.
“The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), which met here, has given its approval to the fresh price for Gorshkov,” a Defence Ministry official said here.
India and Russia are likely to conclude the fresh contract for the aircraft carrier, bought by the Navy in 2004 and rechristened INS Vikramaditya, during Mr. Putin’s stay in the capital.
The warship, purchased originally at a price of USD 974 million, is currently undergoing a refit at the Russian Sevmash shipyard.
Since 2007, the shipyard sought a hike in the price for the warship’s refit programme and had revised the cost of the project twice to demand USD 2.9 billion.
However, India had conveyed that it would not go beyond USD 2.2 billion as a revised price for the project.
After renegotiation of the price for three-long years, the two sides finally arrived at a figure for the refit programme six months ago, but it had to go to the CCS for a final stamp of approval, which it received today.
Along with the warship, India had also bought 16 MiG-29K naval fighter aircraft for USD 526 million. The first four of these fighters were delivered to India on December 4 last and were inducted into the Navy on February 18 this year.
