The memory of the steep price escalation by Russians for the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov was still fresh in the memories of Indian defence authorities, and the latest snags experienced during the trials of the flat top carrier indicates that Moscow will up the price for warship once more.
The issue is expected to be at the forefront when Russian Defence Minister Anatoly E Serdyukov visits India next month. The Russians have informed about the glitches during the sea trials of the 44,570 tonnes Kiev class aircraft carrier, rechristened as INS Vikramaditya literally meaning “Brave as Sun”, to the Indian Defence Ministry.
Sources informed The New Indian Express that the Russians are building up case for another price hike for the second hand warship. “The Russians are claiming that it was the Indian Navy that insisted on bricks insulation for the boilers rather than the traditional asbestos coating and would therefore claim more in the name of dry dock maintenance,” added the sources.
The Indian Navy’s aim to operate two functional aircraft carriers at a given time suffered a second setback when after 90 days of sailing in the Barent Sea seven of the eight boilers of the warship did not function at its maximum power limit. According to the widely read Russian daily “Kommersant”, the seven boilers were damaged during the trial delaying the delivery of the warship by a year.
The Indian Navy, however, contended that the contract provides for leeway of 3-4 months in case of delay in delivery but beyond that the provisions call for imposing penalty if its delayed beyond it.
he acquisition of Admiral Gorshkov has been full of the price escalation saga. Offered as a gift to the Indian Navy in the beginning, the Russians had used the warship to arm-twist the Indian government to cough up more money that was used to bail out the cash-strapped Sevmash shipyard. The contract was signed in 2004 for a package deal of $1.5 billion that included $974 million for its refit and the rest for the 16 MiG-29 K fighter jets. The initial delivery date was in 2008.
However project hit the headlines in 2007 when Russia said that it will not be able to meet its initial deadline of 2008 and pushed it back to 2010 and demanded upped the price to $2.9 billion. After years of strenuous price re-negotiations the deal was re-inked at $2.33 billion in 2010 and December 2012 was fixed as the delivery time.
However, the recent development indicates that the leviathan is going to miss its deadline once again.
Earlier, the indigenous aircraft carrier project suffered a two years delay when truck carrying important equipment met an accident. Both the aircraft carrier are crucial for the Indian Navy’s policy to gain maritime advantage in the Indian Ocean Region – spread from Gulf of Aden in the east to Malacca Strait in the west – as the force envisages to have one aircraft carrier each for its two coasts.
No idiot, we all know very well that the ship is Russian.
