India to get Russian nuclear submarine after 17 years

Vinay Shukla

Moscow, July 5 (PTI) India will get its first Akula
class Russian nuclear submarine next year, equipping its navy
with the quietest and lethal underwater war machine after a
gap of 17 years to enhance its blue water capabilities.

Factory trials of the multi-role nuclear submarine,
christened I.N.S. Chakra which India-will get on a
10-year-lease, commenced on June 11 at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur
shipyard and will be followed by sea trials, Russian defence
sources said, adding it will be delivered by September 2009.

According to experts, Chakra would help India fill the
void caused by the delays in the indigenous Advanced
Technology Vessel project to build a nuclear powered, guided
missile attack submarine.

Three Indian naval crews for the nuclear submarine have
already been trained at the specially set up training centre
in Sosnovy Bor near St. Petersburg.

This facility would also be used for training crews for
the Indian nuclear submarines of ATV project currently in the
advanced stages of development, sources said.

Though they said that India has financed the completion
of construction of submarine of project 971 "Shchuka B"(North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation -- N.A.T.O. codename Akula) under
the U.S.D. 650 million deal signed in 2004 as part of the
larger Gorshkov package, they did not reveal the cost of the
lease of Chakra.

Akula (Shark) is the quietest Russian attack submarine
and Chakra has been christened after its predecessor leased by
the Indian Navy in 1988 from the erstwhile U.S.S.R.

In January 1988, ex-U.S.S.R. had leased K-43 nuclear
submarine of project 670 (N.A.T.O. codename Charlie) which was
with the Indian Navy as I.N.S. Chakra till March 1991, when
under the intense U.S. pressure beleaguered Soviet President
Mikhail Gorbachev had refused to extend the lease. PTI