Tough negotiations result in big savings from Scorpene submarine deal with France

New Delhi: The initial price offered by France and Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) for the three additional Scorpene class submarines was Rs 75,000 crore but the Indian Ministry of Defence negotiated very strongly to get a discount of nearly Rs 40,000 crore from them.

The price of the submarines is now coming to be around 36,000 crore and the discount will result in mega savings for their projects of the Indian Navy and other two defence services.

The price was jointly offered by the MDL, Bharat Electronics Limited and the French side.

The MoD acquisition wing has been indulging in tough negotiations with vendors and has been able to save thousands or crores of taxpayer money.

The tough negotiation drive was started during the tenure of former Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar's time where the working mantra was that every penny saved in making more money available for other modernisation projects for the armed forces.

India and France share robust defence industrial partnership. Last month, during their meeting, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron stressed on the early launch of an R&D framework through a Technical Arrangement for cooperation in defence technologies between DGA and DRDO, thus further deepening the Research and Development partnerships.

In addition, both leaders at the Summit also welcomed the ongoing discussions between L'Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aerospatiales (ONERA) and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to identify technologies for R&D partnerships.

Further, India has welcomed the participation of Indian students, alongside French students, in the challenge on distributed intelligence launched recently by Interdisciplinary Center for Defence and Security from the Institut Polytechnique de Parisand encourages organising of more joint challenges in the future to evoke the interest of students in defence.

Recalling the deep and longstanding defence cooperation between France and India as part of the Strategic Partnership, President Macron and Prime Minister Modi at the last Summit also welcomed the continuation of the cooperation of air and maritime assets in line with the ambitious Defence Industrial Roadmap agreed in 2024.

Both leaders commended progress in collaboration in construction of Scorpene submarines in India, including indigenization, and in particular the work carried out with a view to the integration of DRDO developed Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) into P75-Scorpene submarines and the analyses conducted regarding the possible integration of the Integrated Combat System (ICS) into the future P75-AS submarines.

Both leaders welcomed the commissioning of the sixth and final submarine of the P75 Scorpene-class project, INS Vaghsheer, on 15 January 2025. Both sides welcomed the ongoing discussions in missiles, helicopter engines and jet engines. They also welcomed the excellent cooperation between the relevant entities in the Safran group and their Indian counterparts. Prime Minister Modi also invited the French Army to take a closer look at the Pinaka MBRL, emphasising that an acquisition of this system by France would be another milestone in Indo-French defence ties.

In addition, President Macron welcomed the decision to include India as an observer to the Eurodrone MALE programme managed by OCCAR, which is another step forward in the growing strength of our partnership in defence equipment programmes.

(Deepak Kumar is an Indian security and strategic affairs analyst specialising in geopolitics and geoeconomics. Views expressed are personal)

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