New Delhi, Dec 03: After a year-long war of words
over escalating costs of Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier's
repair and refit, India and Russia have agreed to complete
their negotiations over a new price for the warship within
three months.
India had bought the 44,500-tonne Russian aircraft
carrier in March 2004 at a cost of USD 1.5 billion and sent it
to the Russian Sevmash Shipyard for repair works after which
it would be inducted into the Navy as INS Vikramaditya by
2012.
A decision in this regard was taken yesterday, first at
the India-Russia High Level Monitoring Committee (HLMC)
meeting co-chaired by Defence Secretary Vijay Singh and
Russian Federal Service of Military Technical Cooperation
(FSMTC) Director Mikhail Dmitriev.
Later that evening, the Cabinet Committee on Security
(CCS) chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh too gave its
seal of approval to the agreement reached between the two
sides at the HLMC meeting, Defence Ministry sources said here
today.
Defence Minister A K Antony and his Russian counterpart
Anatoly Serdyukov had during their Inter-Governmental
Commission meeting in September this year agreed to finalise
renegotiation schedule before President Dmitry Medvedev's
state visit to New Delhi, beginning tomorrow.
The two Defence Ministers had also set up the HLMC and
this was the first-ever meeting that it held since its
constitution for coordinating and overseeing the functioning
of the Joint Monitoring Committees for different projects that
the two countries are partnering currently.
Over the last one year, Russians have been placing a
demand for USD 2 billion additional cost over the USD 1.5
billion that New Delhi had already paid for the warship.
The earlier deal, signed in March 2004, also comprised of
MiG-29K fighters and Kamov anti-submarine helicopters, the air
element of the carrier.
While India had wanted to induct the warship, to be the
largest in its inventory, in 2009, the delay in the works on
the aircraft carrier had forced it to reschedule its induction
by 2012.
Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta had told reporters that
India had reconciled to the delay in Gorshkov's delivery, but
said there was some progress in the works on the warship in
recent times.
The ship had been floated at the Russian shipyard already
and the work on the ship's hull had been completed. Work
relating to its cables and exteriors were pending, which would
be completed before 2010, when the ship would be ready for
trials, he said.
With the dispute over the pricing of Gorshkov likely to
be over soon, India can hope to deploy an aircraft carrier
each on both the eastern and western seaboards, as the
existing INS Viraat would be available in service till 2015
after a midlife upgrade.
New Delhi would also be fortunate enough to have its
indigenous aircraft carrier, currently under construction in
Kochi, ready for induction by 2015 when INS Viraat would be
decommissioned from service.
The CCS, at the meeting attended among others by Defence
Minister A K Antony and Home Minister P Chidambaram, also gave
nod to Indian Air Force (IAF) plans to purchase 80 Mi-17-IV
helicopters. This proposal was earlier finalised at the
two-day India-Russia HLMC meeting before it was sent to the
CCS, sources said.
The IAF uses the Mi-17s for transporting troops and
delivering supplies and equipment to soldiers posted in high
altitude areas in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly at Siachen
glacier and Ladakh.
As recently as November 29, the IAF has successfully used
these helicopters for air-dropping commandos over the Nariman
House in Mumbai for eliminating terrorists holding several
innocent civilians hostage.
At the HLMC meeting, that ended here today, the two sides
decided to boost their defence cooperation and discussed
various issues related to the existing projects such as the
multi-role transport aircraft, T-90 tanks, Airborne Early
Warning and Control System (AWACS) for which Russia is
providing Il-76 aircraft, and SU-30MKI air superiority fighter
upgrade.
Various other Russian teams in the capital, ahead of
their President's visit, would continue to hold talks with
their Indian counterparts over the next two days on carrying
forward defence projects such as the development of the
hypersonic version of BrahMos cruise missile, co-development
of a multi-role transport aircraft and the Fifth Generation
Fighter Aircraft (FGFA), sources added.
Bureau Report