In a major boost to the Navy, grappling with dwindling submarine strength, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) has approved of a proposal to build six conventional diesel-electric submarines indigenously. The project cost has been estimated at Rs. 50,000 crore.
The original plan was to have a global tender with two submarines built in a foreign shipyard and the rest in India.
Now all six submarines will be built in a single Indian shipyard within the country under the “Make in India” category with foreign collaboration.
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The council has decided to set up a committee to decide on the shipyards to be issued the Request for Proposal (RFP).
The shipyards compliant will be identified within two months.
These submarines will have air-independent propulsion for extended submergence, land attack missile capability and stealth features. The Navy is currently making do with 14 submarines.
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In a Rs. 3,200-crore deal, Mr. Jaitley has taken a call to go ahead with Israel-made Rafael’s Spike anti-tank guided missiles, rather than take forward the U.S. offer of joint production of Javelin missiles.
The deal includes 8,000-plus missiles, 300-plus launchers and requisite technology transfer to Bharat Dynamics Ltd. (BDL) to build them indigenously. Spike is a third-generation, fire-and-forget, man-portable anti-tank missile. It is intended to equip the 382 Infantry battalions and subsequently the mechanised forces.
The major deals include 363 new BMP-2/2k infantry vehicles to be built by the Ordnance Factory in Medak, Telangana, at a cost of Rs. 1,800 crore and a repeat order of 12 Dorniers, with enhanced sensors, for the Navy to be built by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) at a cost of Rs. 1,850 crore. The Navy currently operates over 40 of them.
An amount of Rs. 740 crore was allotted for 1,768 critical rolling stock wagons used to transport equipment by the Army to replace the existing ones which are more than 30 years old. Five and 7.5 tonne radio relay containers, which are mounted on vehicles with communication equipment, worth Rs. 662 crore were cleared for which Acceptance of Necessity (AON) will be issued soon to domestic manufacturers.
According to informed sources, a deal to acquire Midget submarines for the Navy to undertake ‘special operations’ has also been cleared. Pending deals to acquire heavy torpedoes for the under-construction Scorpene submarines and 127mm high calibre naval guns for future warships have been deferred due to technical issues and are likely to be cleared soon.