With Rs 44,000 crore, India to revive minesweepers plan amid China threat

NEW DELHI: India has revived its long-pending case for the indigenous construction of 12 specialized warships to detect, track and destroy underwater mines laid by enemy forces to choke harbours and ports, disrupt shipping and maritime trade.

Defence ministry sources say the procurement case for the 12 advanced minesweepers or mine countermeasure vessels (MCMVs) for the Navy, at an estimated cost of around Rs 44,000 crore, will soon be placed before the Rajnath Singh-led defence acquisitions council for the grant of “acceptance of necessity (AoN)”.

The “open tender” or RFP (request for proposal) will then be issued for Indian shipyards to submit their techno-commercial bids. “It will take at least 7-8 years, if not more, for the first MCMV to roll out after the contract is inked,” a source said.

The MCMVs are crucial in the backdrop of Chinese nuclear and conventional submarines, which can quietly lay mines, regularly coming to the Indian Ocean Region. Pakistan, too, is rapidly adding to its underwater combat fleet, with eight new Yuan-class diesel-electric submarines to be delivered by China.

The Indian Navy, alarmingly, does not have a single MCMV at present, with its earlier six Karwar-class and two Pondicherry class of minesweepers having progressively retired several years ago.

The force is making do with “clip-on mine countermeasure suites” mounted on some ships to plug the critical capability gap when it needs 24 MCMVs to guard the country’s 7,516-km long coastline with 13 major ports and over 200 minor ones.

Both state and non-state actors can choke harbours and ports by planting underwater mines, which are cheap and relatively easy to use, to blow up warships, merchant vessels and tankers.

The acquisition case for 12 MCMVs had begun way back in July 2005, which eventually led to Goa Shipyard tying up with South Korea firm Kangnam to build the specialized vessels. The negotiations, however, remained deadlocked on the costs, technology transfer and build strategy. The Rs 32,000 crore project was finally scrapped by the MoD in 2017-2018.

With a displacement of around 900-1,000 tonne, the MCMVs have non-magnetic hulls and high-definition sonars, acoustic and magnetic sweeps to detect marooned and drifting mines. The vessels then use remote-controlled systems like small underwater vehicles to detonate the mines at safe distances.

The over 130-warship Navy, of course, played a silent but crucial role during Operation Sindoor earlier this month in dissuading Pakistan from escalating hostilities by forward deploying its aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, warships and submarines in the northern Arabian Sea.

The force currently has 60 warships and vessels under construction in Indian shipyards, while it will also commission its second 3,900-tonne multi-role frigate built in Russia as INS Tamal at Kaliningrad next month.

It also has the initial approval or AoNs for another 31 warships, including seven new-generation frigates, eight corvettes and six stealth diesel-electric submarines. The MCMVs will add to the numbers.

The Navy, however, will reach a force-level of just about 160 warships by 2030, given the slow pace of construction in Indian shipyards as well as the progressive decommissioning of older warships, as earlier reported by TOI.