According to reports in the media, the Indian Navy might only be allowed to buy three nuclear submarines at first. The defence ministry scrapped the original plan, which called for buying six submarines in the first batch, because it would have cost too much.
The Indian Navy’s plans to buy nuclear submarines in 2016 were approved by the defence ministry.
In 2019, it was decided that only three submarines would be made as part of Project-77, which was started to update the Indian Navy.
But things went wrong after that. After the initial investment of Rs 100 crores for research and development, the programme did not get any more money, and the project is still waiting for approval.
In the meantime, France has made a big deal with India about nuclear submarines. As part of the deal, France will help the Indian Navy build six nuclear submarines. France has also offered to share conventional technology from its Barracuda-class nuclear submarine programme.
At the Indian Navy’s Shipbuilding Centre in Visakhapatnam, work is also being done by the Directorate of Naval Design on making a nuclear submarine design that is made in India.
A report by the Indian Defense Research Wing (IDRW) said that officials said there were disagreements about who would pay for the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre to build a new 190MW pressurised water reactor (PWR) (BARC).
The water reactors will be used to power the Indian Navy’s nuclear submarine programme, and a different version of the same reactor was to be made for the S5 Class of ballistic missile submarines.
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