By Swaraj Baggonkar

Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders (MDL), the country’s biggest submarine manufacturer, is eyeing potential orders worth more than ₹1.59 trillion from the Indian Navy, including repeat orders for seven stealth guided-missile frigates and four landing platform docks.

Order for six conventional submarines under project P75I worth ₹43,000 crore, five new generation destroyers worth ₹50,000 crore, frigates worth ₹33,000 crore and eight corvettes worth ₹33,000 crore, make up the potential market for MDL. The value of four landing platform docks was not immediately known.

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Narayan Prasad, chairman and managing director, MDL said, “Navy is positively trying to consider construction of 7 Project 17 Alpha stealth frigates. This is still under evaluation. A couple of Project 17 Alpha frigates could be ordered in 2023-24 itself”. In 2015 MDL had bagged the order to deliver four frigates worth ₹25,700 crore.

Separately, India is buying four Talwar-class stealth frigates from Russia including two which are under construction in Russia itself. The balance two is to be delivered by Goa Shipyard.

“At current escalated value they will roughly go to about ₹33000 crore for the four platforms. The files (for the repeat order) are floated in the Naval hierarchy and the ministry of defence (MoD),” Prasad said about the repeat order for frigates.

A request for proposal (RFP) could be issued within the next 6-8 months for eight corvettes worth ₹33,000 crore. The bid submission timeframe for these vessels will be in 8-10 months.

“The Navy also needs four Landing Platform Docks which are like mini aircraft carriers. Which shipyard is going to build those, is something that is still not configured yet. The financial aspects are yet to be established,” Prasad added.

Perhaps India’s most ambitious plan, which is to build six new generation conventional submarines under Project 75 India (P75I), may see a start later in the year. After a few non-starters for the project which originally involved five foreign players and two domestic players, the bid submission date has been extended to the end of November this year.

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“The P75I is one of the largest defence deals of recent times. The RFP is being reviewed based on the anxiety levels of the participating OEMs and I am sure MoD is finding an answer for that. Some queries have come from OEMs which are being addressed,” Prasad added.

Only DSME of South Korea and TKMS of Germany have qualified for the bid for the P75I. “In case the bid submission gets further delayed, possibly, Navantia of Spain who also have a similar kind of submarine with tested and proven lithium ion battery technology, can also get qualified in due course of time,” Prasad added.