By IANS,
New Delhi : India’s bid to have a Russian-built nuclear-powered submarine in its fleet on a 10-year lease will fructify in the next few months, with Russian Ambassador Alexander Kadakin Wednesday saying it is “coming” soon.
Asked about the Akula-II submarine that India wants to operate to gain experience in the use of nuclear-powered underwater vessel, Kadakin, who was briefing the Indian media on the forthcoming visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Moscow Dec 15-17, said: “It is in the pipeline.”
“It is coming,” he said, even as he professed to maintain the confidentiality clause between the two nations on the deal.
On Sunday, a top Indian defence ministry official confirmed that the nuclear submarine, which Indian proposes to rechristen as INS Chakra, was indeed all set to join the Indian Navy fleet.
The K-152 Nerpa submarine, a Shchuka class (NATO call sign Akula II) vessel, was originally set for induction in the Indian Navy in 2009.
But soon after it was taken out for sea trials in late 2008, the vessel had an accident leading to the death of nearly 20 Russian naval personnel who were testing the newly-built submarine after sailing it out from the Komsomolsk-on-Amur shipyard near Vladivostok, the Russian Navy’s Pacific Fleet base.
India previously had leased a Charlie I class nuclear submarine from the Soviet Union from 1988 to 1991 to gain experience in operating a nuclear-powered submarine.
India is also building an indigenous nuclear-powered submarine, named INS Arihant, which is expected to go for sea trials in the first half of next year, off the Visakhapatnam coast in the Bay of Bengal.