Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 8
Efforts by the Navy’s to be better equipped to locate Chinese submarines in the Indian Ocean through specialised helicopters seem to have hit a roadblock, at least for the moment.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has ordered fresh cost-negotiation with US firm Sikorsky, selected through a tender in December last, for the supply of 16 multi-role helicopters.
In December last, the Navy had selected Sikorsky’s S-70B Seahawk, a 10-tonne twin-engine helicopter. It has advanced anti-ship and anti-submarine warfare capability.
To be based on warships, these copters will carry submarine-locating buoys, which are dunked in the sea to capture the noise of undersea vessels. The correct location allows a copter to fire a missile at a submarine.
Top sources told The Tribune that cost was “surely an issue”. The tender was first floated in 2007 and the company had expressed its inability to supply the copters at the then prevailing cost.
Sources said the “acceptance of necessity” for the copters was made by the MoD in 2006-07, assuming Rs900 crore as the cost of these 16 copters, which was later revised to Rs1,760 crore. The current cost of such copters is estimated to be between Rs3,500 crore and Rs4,000 crore, said sources.
The cost-negotiation committee will now need approval from the MoD to re-negotiate at fresh benchmarks prices, ignoring the figures decided in 2006-07.
At present, the Navy has a fleet 16 Westland Sea King Mk42B/C anti-submarine helicopters of the 1980s vintage, of which 12 are operational at any point in time. Another 10 Kamov-28 copters are being upgraded by Russia.
The Chinese, in the past one year, have conducted three submarine patrols close to the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, the last being in May.
Naval Might
INDIA
- A fleet 16 Westland Sea King Mk42B/C anti-submarine helicopters of the 1980s vintage
- Of these, 12 are operational at any point in time
- Another 10 Kamov-28 copters are being upgraded by Russia
CHINA
- Five nuclear attack submarines, four nuclear-ballistic missile submarines and 53 diesel attack submarines
- By 2020, this force will likely grow to between 69 and 78 submarines
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