New Delhi: France’s ‘Naval Group’ said Tuesday it is unable to participate in Centre’s P-75I project. The P-751 is a project under which six conventional submarines will be domestically built for the Indian Navy. The ‘Naval Group’ said that due to conditions mentioned in the request for proposal (RFP) related to air independent propulsion (AIP) system, it is not being able to participate in the project. AIP system allows a conventional submarine to stay submerged in water at higher speeds for a longer period of time.
Naval Group’s announcement comes a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Paris. Modi is scheduled meet recently re-elected French President Emmanuel Macron.
In June last year, the Defence Ministry had cleared the P-75I project. Subsequently, RFPs were issued to two shortlisted Indian companies – private company Larsen and Toubro and state-run Mazagaon Docks Limited.
The two Indian companies (called strategic partners) have to tie up with one of the five shortlisted foreign companies. They are ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (Germany), Navantia (Spain) and Naval Group (France), Daewoo (South Korea) and Rosoboronexport (Russia). Then they will have to 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.
In a statement Tuesday, Laurent Videau, Country and Managing Director, Naval Group India, 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). So 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 solution for Indian Navy’s P-75I project, being fully in line with Aatmanirbhar Bharat principle, Videau said.
Nevertheless, Naval Group strengthens its existing commitments and look forward for closer association with India, he said.
“Our focus and efforts are towards continuation of our collaboration with Indian industry in realising the vision of Government of India by supporting Indian Navy for other future developments and projects (maintenance, high tech tools, indigenous AIP, incremental improvements in Scorpene designed submarine, heavy weight torpedoes, larger ships etc),” Videau said in the statement.
India is one of the largest importers of arms globally. The Centre wants to reduce dependence on imported military platforms. So it has been boosting the domestic defence manufacturing.