Evaluate life-cycle costs for the Navy's big acquisitions

Let's revise our cost calculus to indigenize equipment for warships and accelerate naval upgradation

- ALOK BHAGWAT

The Indian Navy has embarked upon aggressive shipbuilding. Indian shipyards have been active, with a large number of ships and submarines on order. The shipbuilding cycle has significantly reduced in India and platforms are being inducted into service at an accelerated pace. Though ship design and construction are predominantly indigenous, India still imports high-technology equipment of the so-called 'Move' category (which includes high-power engines, gas turbines and propulsion motors and the like), 'Fight' category (radars, missile systems and so on) and special category systems for specialized platforms such as tankers, aircraft carriers and submarines. Indigenization efforts in these categories, however, are currently on a fast track.

Military hardware projects typically require large amounts of funding. Let us take a broad look at the costs involved in warship projects. Official data is hard to come by, but we have indicative numbers.

According to Defence News, Visakhapatnam Class Destroyers, inducted into service between years 2021 and 2025, have been built at a cost of about ₹36,000 crore. Their indigenization level was put at 70%, which suggests an import bill in the range of ₹10,000 crore. The next-generation destroyers that are in the pipeline are expected to cost about ₹85,000 crore; these will have an import component of about ₹20,000 crore (less than 25%), as projected.