Capt. Jawahar Bhagwat PhD (retd)

In 1997, the government approved the construction of two indigenous SSK submarines of Type 1500 at Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd (MDL). In October 2000, with the approval of the then minister of defence, Request for Proposal (RFP) was forwarded only to Thomsun CSF, France. Though the Price Negotiation Committee (PNC) was held between November 2001 and June 2002 and the draft Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) note was prepared in October 2002, the contract was signed only on 6 October 2005 after approval of the next government.

The Public Accounts Committee of the 15^th Lok Sabha in its 10th report stated, ‘Though the government accorded approval in 1997 due to depleting force levels, it took nine years for finalisation of the contract.’ The Scorpene project continues to be delayed with the first submarine having been commissioned in December 2017 and the second submarine on 28 September 2019, well behind the originally intended schedule of 2012 for the first submarine and 2017 for the last submarine. At the commissioning of the second submarine INS Khanderi, defence minister Rajnath Singh, said, “Our special partnership with the French Navy will touch new heights. The construction of the submarine is benefitting industries indirectly through the ‘Make in India’ programme. Our government is alert to the needs of our defence force and we are committed to fulfilling it.”

However, it is understood that the navy has asked MDL to pay a thousand crore rupees due to the repeated late delivery of these submarines. Though construction began on 14 December 2006, INS Kalvari could be launched only on 27 October 2015 and commissioned on 14 December 2019. One of the reasons attributed for the delay in the Scorpene contract is that expertise had to be built up by MDL afresh as submarine building stopped in 1994 post commissioning of INS Shankul with the blacklisting of HDW. This has, of course, been repeatedly highlighted by MDL.

INS Sindhushastra at the Admiralty shipyards, commissioning ceremony Credit - Admiralty shipyards

Notwithstanding the claim on MDL by the navy, since MDL functions under the department of defence production, it is unlikely that this claim will be permitted by the defence ministry. The issues with respect to the Scorpene contract including cost escalation due to delay in signing of the contract have been documented in detail by the 10^th report of the Public Accounts Committee of the 15^th Lok Sabha. In addition, for reasons best known to Integrated Headquarters ministry of defence (Navy), the contract did not follow the well-documented and attention to detail of the contract for Shishumar class submarines. All shore support and training facilities so vital for submarines were not catered for.

Apart from non-synchronisation of the delivery of the platform and the SM-39 missiles, the most glaring snafu was that the contract did not cater for a heavyweight torpedo, the main weapon of offense and defence for any submarine. As a consequence, these submarines are being fitted with the SUT torpedo which was procured originally in the early Eighties for the Shishumar class submarines. The defence ministry and the navy may argue that these torpedoes have been modernised recently, but that is only the electronics part. The capabilities including the range and maximum speed remain the same and these capabilities are inferior to modern torpedoes.

Regrettably the programme for