According to a report in the ” Hindustan Times”, Indian Navy leadership is considering ordering more of the submarines based on the baseline French Kalvari Class (Scorpene) submarine due to delays in the Project-75I -(India) tender to acquire six more conventional-diesel submarines due to a lack of interest from the International OEMs.
Indian Navy has extended the timeline for the Request For Proposal (RFP) multiple times already for the construction of six advanced submarines and the new deadline is for August this year due to a lack of offers in the tender.
It’s not clear at this point if Indian Navy will approve the French offer of procuring three more Kalvari Enhanced Class submarines with DRDO developed Air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems and Lithium-ion batteries with a higher percentage of indigenous content.
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Indian Navy has extended the timeline for the Request For Proposal (RFP) multiple times already for the construction of six advanced submarines and the new deadline is for August this year due to a lack of offers in the tender.
It’s not clear at this point if Indian Navy will approve the French offer of procuring three more Kalvari Enhanced Class submarines with DRDO developed Air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems and Lithium-ion batteries with a higher percentage of indigenous content.
The second proposal that Warship Design Bureau (WDB) had proposed was the development of the Super Kalvari Submarine Program, where the submarine will have two additional modules one for the Air-independent propulsion (AIP) system and the second module for the Vertical launching system (VLS).
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The submarine proposed under the Super Kalvari Submarine Program could have made the submarine have an estimated overall length of 100m+ with a submerged displacement of over 3000 tons which will be near twice that of the presently submerged displacement of the Kalvari class submarine.
If indeed Project-75I -(India) is scrapped then it is likely that India will develop Super Kalvari Submarine Program into a full-fledged program for six submarines and will acquire the required expertise before it commences work on the fully indigenous submarine program for 12 conventional-diesel submarine program after completion of this program.