GERMANY PLANS TO BUILD 6 NEW SUBMARINES IN TIE-UP WITH INDIA

Germany on Tuesday pitched for building six advanced submarines in India under the government's strategic partnership (SP) model, to boost the Indian Navy's undersea strength, during talks, between defence minister Rajnath Singh and his German counterpart Boris Pistorius, aimed at bolstering bilateral defence cooperation with a sharp focus on stronger industrial partnerships, people aware of the matter said.

- Rahul Singh and Rezaul H Laskar

The project, called P-75 India, is one of the biggest Make in India programmes.

"The Germans are enthusiastic about their participation in the P-751 competition to build submarines in the country. The Indian side welcomed their participation," said one of the officials cited above, asking not to be named.

Both leaders reviewed the ongoing bilateral defence cooperation and explored ways to strengthen collaboration, particularly in defence industrial partnerships, the Indian defence ministry said in a statement. Pistorius’s India visit is the first by a German defence minister in eight years. To be sure, the official statement made no mention of P-75I.

India cleared the estimated ₹43,000 crore project two years ago to strengthen the navy’s capabilities and provide momentum to the defence indigenisation drive, one of the government's key priorities.

The SP model envisages indigenous manufacturing of major defence platforms by an Indian strategic partner who will collaborate with a foreign original equipment manufacturer OEM) to set up production facilities in the country.

“We are talking about a deal of ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems TKMS) for six submarines, but the procedure is not finished yet. I think the German industry is at a good place in that P-75I) race,” Pistorius told German reporters accompanying him. He arrived in India on Monday on a four-day visit.

In January 2020, the defence ministry cleared two Indian and five foreign shipbuilders, including German conglomerate TKMS, to take part in P-75I.