India’s First Scorpene-class Sub To Start Trials This Year

India’s first Scorpene class submarine Kalvari will start trial later this year.

“Sometime this year, the trial will start. Trials will go on for close to a year,” Vice Chief of Naval Staff P. Murugesan was quoted as saying during a press conference on Roadmap for a Future Ready Naval Force by news agency IANS Friday.

Murugesan was confident of the industrial capability although he worried on the delivery deadline.

"A warship in any country shows its industrial capability. Today we can produce destroyers and frigates no less than any other destroyer and frigate, and it is much cheaper," Murugesan said.

"Timeline is where we need to make change." he said.

The contracts for building Visakhapatnam class (Project 15B) stealth guided missile destroyers and Shivalik-class frigate (Project 17A) have components for outsourcing indigenously to promote Make in India, he said.

India set afloat the first of Scorpene class submarine, Kalvari on October 29 last year. The Project- 75 submarines, are built by state-owned Mazagon Docks Limited (MDL) along with French DCNS.

India is likely to order an additional three Scorpene submarines to the existing order of six under Project 75.

“The Navy, which has a severe shortage of undersea platforms, would order additional Scorpene submarines after Mazgaon Docks (MDL) finishes building the six on order under Project 75,”         Indian Naval Chief Admiral R K Dhowan had said in December last year.

The Indian Defense Acquisition Council approved the procurement of six submarines from local shipyards worth INR 5000 crore (US$8.3 billion) in October 2014.