Profitable Partnerships

Palak Gupta

After a long delay, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) chaired by defence minister Rajnath Singh finally nominated two domestic shipyard companies — state-owned Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd (MDL) and private sector firm Larsen & Toubro (L&T) as Strategic Partners for the ambitious Project-75 India (Project 75-I) submarine building programme on 21 January 2020.

INS Kalvari

Project 75-I-class submarine irrefutably is one of the country’s longest delayed defence projects and it is a follow-on of Project 75 Kalvari-class submarines for the Indian Navy. This is the second project under the ministry of defence’s (MoD) Strategic Partnership (SP) model, the other being the procurement of 111 Naval Utility Helicopters (NUH).

In line with the government’s flagship ‘Make in India’ programme, SP model aims at promoting India as a manufacturing hub for defence equipment through transfer of niche technologies and higher Indigenous Content (IC).

Under this project, six new stealth submarines will be constructed in collaboration with global Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), namely, France’s Naval Group, Spain’s Navantia, Russia’s Rubin Design Bureau (which will partake in the programme through Rosoboronexport), Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) and South Korea’s Daewoo. The Rs 50,000 crore project is expected to provide impetus to the existing submarine design and manufacturing eco-system in the country via transfer of design and equipment technology along with the required skill sets.

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The Indian SPs were shortlisted for their capability to integrate systems, expertise in shipbuilding domain and the financial strength. The global OEMs were primarily judged on their submarine design, Transfer of Technology (ToT) and IC criteria.

Navantia has offered S-80 plus-class submarine; Rubin Design Bureau brings the Amur 1650 submarine to the table; France is offering the Scorpene 2000; TKMS has pitched its HDW class 214 and Daewoo is offering its KSS-