Indian Navy to Receive First Scorpene-class Nuclear Submarine in September

The Indian Navy is likely to be commission its first Scorpene-class submarine, Kalvari, in the middle of this month.

“The delivery is to take place around the middle of September,” one of the people quoted above said. The delivery means that the trials of Kalvari are over and that the trials of Kalvari are over and the navy has accepted the boat, which is expected to be commissioned this month, unnamed naval and industry sources were quoted as saying by Economic Times Wednesday.

Indian Navy had prepared a timeline for commissioning six French-designed Scorpene submarines in March this year.

The first two vessels are expected to be commissioned by end of the year, Press Trust of India had reported.

The submarines are being built at the Mazagon Dock Ltd in Mumbai with technology from French defence major DCNS under a project called P-75 at a cost of around $ 3.5 billion.

As per the plan, the second submarine Khanderi will be inducted into the Navy fleet by end of 2017 and thereafter each vessel will be commissioned at an interval of nine months.

In August 2016, over 20,000 confidential pages of the submarine's manual were leaked by Australian media, stirring up a controversy about the impact to India's ambitions of fielding a blue-water navy. Though it triggered apprehensions that the leak may compromise the stealth capabilities of the vessels, DCNS responded that those documents were not crucial.

The Scorpène-class submarines are a class of diesel-electric attack submarines jointly developed by the French Direction des Constructions Navales (DCN) and the Spanish company Navantia, and now by DCNS. It features diesel propulsion and an additional air-independent propulsion (AIP).