Day Ahead of PM Narendra Modi’s Visit, France Withdraws From Strategic Submarine Project

Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be visiting France on Wednesday where he is scheduled to meet recently re-elected French President Emmanuel Macron.

New Delhi: Just a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Paris where he is arranged to meet recently re-elected French President Emmanuel Macron, France’s Naval Group on Tuesday said that it is unable to participate in the Centre’s P-75I project under which six conventional submarines are to be domestically built for the Indian Navy “due to conditions mentioned in the request for proposal (RFP) related to air-independent propulsion (AIP) system”, said a Naval Group’s announcement.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be visiting France on Wednesday where he is scheduled to meet recently re-elected French President Emmanuel Macron.

AIP system allows a conventional submarine to stay submerged in water at higher speeds for a longer period of time.

The Defence Ministry had in June last year cleared the P-75I project and subsequently, RFPs were issued to two shortlisted Indian companies (called strategic partners)- private company Larsen and Toubro and state-run Mazagaon Docks Limited.

Larsen and Toubro and state-run Mazagaon Docks Limited have to tie up with one of the five shortlisted foreign companies – ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (Germany), Navantia (Spain) and Naval Group (France), Daewoo (South Korea) and Rosoboronexport (Russia) – and then respond to the RFP, according to the Defence Ministry.

The Rs 43,000 crore contract will be awarded by the Defence Ministry following a detailed evaluation of the responses sent by the two strategic partners.

Laurent Videau, Country and Managing Director, Naval Group India, in a statement on Tuesday, said, “Due to certain conditions in the RFP, the two strategic partners could not forward the request to us and few other FOEMs (foreign original equipment manufacturers) and thus we have not been able to place an official bid for the project.”

Naval Group has always been ready to offer the best in class and adapted solutions for Indian Navy’s P75I project, being fully in line with the Aatmanirbhar Bharat principle, he said.

“However, the present RFP requires that the fuel cell AIP (air-independent propulsion) be sea proven, which is not the case for us yet since the French Navy does not use such propulsion system,” he mentioned.

Nevertheless, Naval Group strengthens its existing commitments and looks forward to closer association with India, he said.

“Our focus and efforts are towards the continuation of our collaboration with Indian industry in realising the vision of the Government of India by supporting the Indian Navy for other future developments and projects (maintenance, high tech tools, indigenous AIP, incremental improvements in Scorpene designed submarine, heavyweight torpedoes, larger ships etc),” he mentioned.

India is one of the largest importers of arms globally and the Centre wants to reduce dependence on imported military platforms and has been boosting the domestic defence manufacturing.

(With agency inputs)