Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to France, the country's major defence manufacturer, the Naval Group has pulled out of India's Project 75, an ambitious project for manufacturing diesel-electric submarines for its Navy. The Naval Group cited the request for proposal (RFP) requirements as the cause for pulling out of the project. The Indian Navy received an order for six submarines from the Ministry of Defence in July of last year. This project, dubbed Project 75 (India), is estimated to cost Rs 43,000 crore.
"Naval Group has always been ready to offer the best in class and adapted solution for Indian Navy's P75(I) project, being fully in line with AatmaNirbhar Bharat principle. However, the present RFP requires that the fuel cell AIP be sea proven, which is not the case because the French Navy does not use such a propulsion system," said Laurent Videau, Country and Managing Director, Naval Group India.
The RFP for Project 75 was sent to five major businesses around the world, including Naval Group-DCNS in France, Rosoboronexport in Russia, Thyssenkrupp in Germany, Navantia in Spain, and Daewoo in South Korea (I). These five firms had to pick between two Indian companies to build these six submarines in India: Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) and Larsen & Toubro (L&T). It should be emphasised that all three European and Russian firms have since withdrawn from the project.
Project 75
Under project 75, the INS Kalvari, India's first indigenous submarine, was launched in October 2015 and commissioned in December 2017, after a delay of five years. The second, INS Khanderi, was launched for sea trials in January 2017 and commissioned in September 2019. The third is the INS Karanj which had been commissioned in 2021. The fourth submarine, the INS Vela, was launched in May three years ago and has been inducted into the Indian Navy. While the fifth submarine, the INS Vagir, was launched in November 2020.
