Russian naval shipyard to service Indian submarines

Under the contract effective till 2009, Zvyozdochka shipyard would provide full servicing for four submarines of the Indian Navy.

A Russian naval shipyard has signed a three-year contract with the Indian Navy for servicing submarines in India.

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Under the contract effective till 2009, Severodvinsk-based Zvyozdochka shipyard would provide full servicing for four Kilo class diesel-electric submarines of the Indian Navy at their bases in India, ITAR-TASS reported.

Located on the White Sea coast in north Russia, Zvyozdochka shipyard specialises on the servicing and scraping of nuclear submarines.

It has already upgraded three Kilo class submarines of the Indian Navy beginning from INS Sindhuvir, and fourth INS Sindhghosh is currently undergoing deep refit including the installation of vertical tubes for launching Club-S cruise missiles.

Although the agency did not give the cost of the Indian contract and other details, except that it was concluded through Rosoboronexport State Corporation, it is not ruled out that four upgraded submarines with vertical tubes could be adopted for deployment of state-of-the-art BrahMos cruise missiles.

During recent fleet review, President APJ Abdul Kalam had unveiled the plans to deploy Indo-Russian BrahMos cruise missiles on the naval submarines.