Indian Navy to build all ships locally

Having recently learned that their new aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya (ex- Admiral Gorshkov), would be completed two years later than contracted and at twice the cost at the Russian shipyard, Sevmashpredpriyatiye in Archangels, India has decided to embark on an ambitious programme to modernise its naval shipyards. Before India becomes self-sufficient, Russia will get another billion-dollar order for three Krivak-III frigates. But the navy says that could be the last big order placed abroad. Currently 38 naval vessels are under construction in India including new frigates at Mazagon Docks Limited, Mumbai, and Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers, Kolkata. The naval shipyards at Mumbai, Kolkata and Goa are building 30 warships, while the public sector Cochin Shipyard is building the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) and a nuclear submarine is being constructed at a facility in Vishakapatnam. Private sector yards are constructing another six survey vessels. The ships being produced in India include three Project 15-A destroyers named the Kolkata class, and three Project 17 stealth frigates of the Shivalik class. India?s three defence shipyards have already proved their ability to build world-class warships, but churning them out fast enough has been a bottleneck. India?s Maritime Capability Perspective Plan (MCPP), a secret document that sets out the year-wise schedule for inducting new ships into service, demands an average of five new warships each year to replace an equal number that retire annually from the Navy?s 140-ship fleet after completing their service life of about 30 years. The dockyards, so far, have managed a combined annual output of barely 3.5 vessels. This gap has, so far, been filled by imports. In India, the Defence Procurement Policy now specifies how warships will be produced. Like in the US, the Indian Navy will produce the functional design and. thereafter, like in Russia, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) will nominate a defence shipyard to manufacture that series of ships. The MoD?s next step is to modernise the three naval shipyards, i.e. Mumbai?s Mazagon Docks Ltd (MDL), Kolkata?s Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) and Goa Shipyards Limited, to build ships quickly from those designs.