The RFP for building 16 anti-submarine warfare shallow-water craft (ASW-SWC) to be built to an Indian design was issued in April 2014.
It was in December 2017 that Cochin Shipyard Ltd’s (CSL) offer (based on a warship design provided by Vik Sandvik Design India Pvt Ltd) was selected as the L-12 bid, with the L-2 bid coming from Kolkata-based Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd (GRSE).
The following year, India’s Ministry of Defence decided that both CSL and GRSE would share the cake by each building eight of the ASW-CWCs.
While CSL estimates its orders for the eight vessels to be worth Rs.5,400 crore, the contract inked yesterday with GRSE is worth Rs.6,311.32 crore.
The first ASW-SWC is slated for delivery by GRSE within 42 months of contract signature, following which two vessels will be delivered every year. Scheduled project completion period is 84 months.
The 42-month period timeframe given for the rollout of the first ASW-SWC is awfully long, considering that the vessel will displace only 750 tonnes. This in turn indicates that the Indian Navy has not yet decided on the fitment of various sensors and weapon systems due to go on board the vessels—this being also the case with all warships designed to date by the Indian Navy’s Naval Design Bureau.
This consequently has led to only 33% of a warship’s superstructure being floated at launch-time (usually within a three-year period), while the rest of the superstructure takes more than five years to be completed, thereby leading to prohibitive cost-overruns and highly visible compromises in build-quality. For this, the Indian Navy, and not the DPSU shipyards, is primarily to be blamed and held accountable.