After TOI report, Antony reviews submarine projects

[thestringshredder]

NEW DELHI: With the Navy sounding the alarm over its depleting underwater combat arm, defence minister AK Antony on Thursday reviewed the progress in the ongoing Scorpene project to construct six submarines, as well as the long-delayed new project for six stealth submarines.

Antony told officials to iron out the delays soon in issuing the global tender for the over Rs 50,000 crore construction of the six stealth submarines, which are to be armed with both land-attack missile and air-independent propulsion, for greater underwater endurance.

As was first reported by TOI last Sunday, the finance ministry has once again returned the file for this new submarine project to the defence ministry for clarifications. Moreover, the ongoing over Rs 23,000 crore project to construct six Scorpene submarines has been delayed by another 14-18 months, with the first vessel slated to roll out of Mazagon docks only by November 2016 at the earliest.

This is four years behind the original 2012-17 induction schedule for the six submarines.

The new project called Project-75India (P-75I), in turn, is still meandering through political apathy and bureaucratic bottlenecks, despite being examined by three committees over the last six years. It's embroiled in a debate over the selection of Indian shipyards "to undertake the programme and the level of indigenization to be achieved".

Even if the tender for the long-delayed P-75I is floated immediately, it will take at least three years to ink the contract with the foreign collaborator eventually selected, and, another seven to eight years after that for the first new submarine to be built.

This is the scenario, when projections show only five to six of the present 14 Indian aging conventional submarines will be fully operational by 2020. India, even with a few Scorpenes by then, will remain far short of the minimum of 18 conventional submarines required to deter Pakistan and China.

Link - After TOI report, Antony reviews submarine projects - The Times of India

Does Mr.Antony want to be spoon fed on each and every details. Why does he sit there and do as Raksha Mantri, without having any basic skills.

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

Pathetic pathetic state of affairs,i belive navy wille xtend scorpene order to 9.

 

[nair]

Defence Minister had to be reminded by a News paper on the state of preparedness of Indian forces????? Not done Anthonichaa...

 

[Tshering22]

And this is the Minister of Defence that needs a Taboid paper to remember a national defence project..

Thanks a lot Congress and its secoolar supporters... you make us Indians feel so safe at night.

 

[Abingdonboy]

Defence Minister had to be reminded by a News paper on the state of preparedness of Indian forces????? Not done Anthonichaa...

And this is the Minister of Defence that needs a Taboid paper to remember a national defence project..

Thanks a lot Congress and its secoolar supporters... you make us Indians feel so safe at night.

Don't get sensational guys! This sort of thing happens worldwide- the press highlighting certain topics and only then the politicians waking up and doing anything about it.

 

[nair]

Don't get sensational guys! This sort of thing happens worldwide- the press highlighting certain topics and only then the politicians waking up and doing anything about it.

We are not talking about any infrastructure development where in the minister can take it lightly or any delay may not cause much of an issue.....

We are talking about defense preparedness of a nation size of "INDIA".... If he cannot review or understand the issue faced by Naval forces then what is his job??? What kind of review mechanism does he have????......

 

[sancho]

Antony told officials to iron out the delays soon in issuing the global tender

Here is the real problem, because these officials should be from IN and one should ask what issues they have and why they take so long to field the competition properly?

 

[Bhai Zakir]

Very very shamefull, the useless antony should be sacked.

Never in the history of India we had such a huge defense budget but the defense minister is dumb and just want to keep clean his image.

 

[President]

way to go Anthony..

 

[sab]

Everyone seems to forget the guilt of the Babus- in Navy and in gvt and pointing gun to Antony.... First , the things should have not reached so far that the defence minister has to appear to castigate people....

 

[SPFG]

Guys DCNS interview.

Amid reports of India’s Scorpene submarine building programme at defence shipyard Mazagon Dock Limited (MDL) suffering another jolt and resultant delay in the wake of the yard’s failure to renew its technology assistance contract with the Spanish Navantia, DCNS-India — subsidiary of the French defence shipbuilding firm DCNS which is the original manufacturer of the Scorpenes — insists that the project is very much on track.

“DCNS is the original manufacturer of the Scorpene submarine and we have all the know-how and design authority to perform TOTs [transfer of technology] for the complete submarine. We have provided MDL with technical assistance beyond contractual obligations in order to overcome teething problems and we will continue to do so until [the] successful completion of the project, Bernard Buisson, managing director of DCNS-India, told The Hindu over email when asked about the fallout of Navantia pulling out its consultants from the project.

While Navantia and French firm DCN (which later became DCNS) had jointly developed the Scorpenes, the two parted ways in 2010 following a spat, with DCNS becoming the only manufacturer of the diesel-electric submarines.

In his detailed response, Mr. Buisson chose to tacitly blame MDL for delaying the project for construction of six submarines for the Indian Navy, attributing the teething problems the yard faced and ostensibly overcome to its lack of submarine building experience in the last 15 years as also to the contractual obligation of building the entire class in India.

“….MDL had stopped manufacturing submarines for more than 15 years. Indeed, no shipyard can retain the expertise, know-how and trained staff if there is no permanent activity to maintain a minimum level of competence.

“Another specificity of this project is that all the six submarines are being built in MDL. Usually, for such contracts involving complex TOTs, the first of class (first submarine) is always manufactured at the OEM’s [original equipment manufacturer] shipyard with on-the-job training (OJT) from the buyer’s shipyard who can thus acquire know-how more rapidly,” he said.

The MDL had now been able to manufacture hulls of all six submarines as fast and with the same level of quality as DCNS would in its shipyard in France, he added.

According to Mr. Buisson, MDL’s complex procurement procedures too contributed to the delay.

“… The procurement of a large quantity of equipment from many different overseas suppliers is not an easy task and some of these foreign small and medium enterprises are not used to deal[ing] directly with foreign shipyards like MDL who have complex procurement procedures.

DCNS insists Scorpene project is on track | The Hindu

 

[President]

Everyone seems to forget the guilt of the Babus- in Navy and in gvt and pointing gun to Antony.... First , the things should have not reached so far that the defence minister has to appear to castigate people....

Anthony is a culprit..bottom line is if he is the boss. he need s to fix the system..if he cant ..either he is part of the system or does not have effective commnad on it

 

[Tshering22]

Don't get sensational guys! This sort of thing happens worldwide- the press highlighting certain topics and only then the politicians waking up and doing anything about it.

"Worldwide" doesn't have an unstable, lawless, nuclear-armed fundamentalist neighbourhood coupled with another much larger, nuclear armed, expansionist absolutist state aiming to capture as much land as possible...


We Indians do

 

[sancho]

Everyone seems to forget the guilt of the Babus- in Navy and in gvt and pointing gun to Antony.... First , the things should have not reached so far that the defence minister has to appear to castigate people....

It's our mentality that we blame the easiest target, while ignoring the once that really caused the problems, be it the scientiests that failed in developing Kaveri, the project managers of LCA, or officials of all three forces, that often fail to field competitions propperly, or without taking bribes.
Even if Antony would be the ideal DM, he would be dependent on the performance of these people too. So if we want to take Anotny accountable for the slow modernisation, we can't stop with him only, but have to take DRDOs Saraswath and other officials to account as well.