Relook at Indigenius Diesel submarine Production
In 1999, When Cabinet approved a 30-Year Submarine Construction Plan, for constructing 24 conventional submarines in India. Many called it Too Ambitious , others achievable . Fast forward into 2014 , 15 Years later not a Single New Diesel Submarine has been Inducted yet , Not only we have missed our goal post , we are literally running blind to nowhere .
30-Year Submarine Construction Plan involves 3 Phases, First Phase obviously was Project-75, under which six Scorpene submarines was to be built at the state-owned Mazagon Docks in collaboration with DCNS of France.construction of P-75 submarine project has been lagging behind the original schedule. As per the revised schedule, the first submarine from the P-75 project is expected to be with the Indian Navy by 2015 and the last by 2020-21, so by 2019 thats twenty years already gone of Submarine Construction Plan, we might have only 3 Scorpene submarines .
Phase-II involves acquisition of six new stealth submarines, equipped with both tube-launched missiles for land-attack capabilities as well as AIP (air-independent propulsion) for enhanced underwater capability plan is to directly import two submarines from the foreign collaborator eventually selected, with the next three being built at MDL in Mumbai, and the sixth at Hindustan Shipyard in Visakhapatnam under transfer of technology. India is yet to award any contract under this project , But if some urgency is shown and a contract is awarded by early 2015 , Indian navy will be able to able to induct 2 OEM supplied Diesel submarine by 2019 . Bringing total induction of new submarines to 5 by 2019 .
Phase-III plans was that after Building 10 Diesel submarine locally in India,under project P-75 and P-75I, we will have enough knowhow and technical expertise in hand to built 12 more diesel Submarines of Indigenous design . Phase-III is a far fetched idea, to start with. Phase-1 and Phase-II had to be completed for Phase-III to begin with , Currently DRDO is only working on indigenous Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) at the Naval Material Research Laboratory (NMRL) in Mumbai to develop hydrogen-based fuel cells for the diesel-powered submarines, which might go in last two Scorpene submarine and later will be used in Indian built Submarines , But Phase-1 will go up to 2020-21 period and Phase-II close to 2030 . so Phase-III will start post 2030 ?? . Even if Indian navy ends up with 12 diesel submarine from project P-75 and P-75I by 2029 , Navy will actually replace older ones with newer ones and force level, more or less will remain same as today . 4 HDW class submarines will be retired soon and 9 operational Kilo class might serve for next 10 years .
Easiest Option India could have is to , get away with Phase-III and Add 6 more modernised submarines each in project P-75 and P-75I, with better equipments . By adding Second Production line to project P-75 and P-75I we might gain some lost ground But sure we will miss the 2029 target of 24 submarines , but will save time in development of such submarines . While many Private firms have shown interest in building diesel submarines for India , it could be wise to enter into joint partnership with PSU’s and Private firms in their development . Indigenous effort can be directed to development of Nuclear Attack submarines, which has already been cleared by the center .Indian plans to operate 3 Arihant class SSBN Nuclear submarines, Six New SSN Attack class submarines and then 3 to 5 Bigger SSBN class submarines .
Indian needs to make some tough decisions now, so that Navy will have enough submarines to keep chinese naval fleet at bay in Indian ocean , We could all hope that new Modi government will be decisive and not waste time like UPA government did by not taking hard decisions and kept every thing pending for years . Indian planners cannot juggle too many apples in their hand and will have to focus more on current and future needs with open mind and plan things which are realistically achievable.
