With an objective to guard the strategically important Indian Ocean and bolster its reach to defend the country’s interest, the Indian Navy is aiming to have a 200-ship fleet by 2027 as per its maritime capability perspective plan. At present, the Navy has 137 ships and submarines.
Disclosing this here on Tuesday, Vice-Chief of Navy Vice-Admiral P Murugesan said the Navy was also exploring possibilities of manufacturing warships with Russian collaboration within the country under the ‘Make in India’ policy.
Elaborating upon it, he said the Navy was in talks for three Grigorivich-class frigates, an improved version of the six Talwar-class frigates procured in one decade from 2003-13 from Russia. The Vice-Chief, however, clarified that as of now, the talks were exploratory.
He also confirmed that a high-level committee of the Defence Ministry has submitted its report identifying Indian shipyards capable of executing the about Rs60,000 crore project of building the next six conventional submarines under Project P-75I. A Request for Proposal (RFP) would be issued soon in this regard, Murugesan said adding an RFP would also be issued for the procurement of two deep-sea rescue vessels.