The first of the Scorpenes being built in Mumbai is expected to go into service by the end of the year, the first step in the Navy’s effort to rebuild its dwindling submarine fleet.
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The data leak raised concern over security of the company’s big projects and may affect other contract notably the “historic” 40-billion-U.S. -dollar accord to build a fleet of 12 new submarines for Australia.
Including technical manuals and models of the boat’s antennas, the leak exposes the new submarines’ secrets in an unforgivable way: “If it’s 22,400 pages, it’s a major stuff-up, it’s a huge deal”.
The data leak has revealed the detailed information about the combat capability of the Scorpene submarines being built in India.
The Australian said DCNS disguised that the leak may have come from India rather than France.
“The submarine we are building or will be building with the French is called the Barracuda, quite a completely different submarine to the Scorpene they are building for India”, he said.
India is investigating the extent to which secrets about French Scorpene submarines being built in the country have been compromised, Indian Defence Ministry said on Wednesday, after a leak of documents related to its combat capabilities. Find us on Facebook too!
The Australian said that the leak will also cause alarm at the highest level in countries that operate a variant of the Scorpene, or have ordered the submarine, including Brazil, Chile and Malaysia. “It needs to be verified if the leaked documents are authentic”, an MDL official said reacting to the reports of the massive data leak.
The leak, first reported by The Australian, includes sensitive information about the Scorpene submarines designed by French defense contractor DCNS for the Indian Navy.
“Matter has been taken up with the DG of Armaments of the French Government”.
“The Government of India, as a matter of abundant precaution, is also examining the impact if the information contained in the documents claimed to be available with the Australian sources is compromised”.
It though that data has been passed through firms in Southeast Asia before finally being mailed to a company in Australia, the newspaper said.
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Defence Minister of India Manohar Parrikar admitted that a leak had taken place. DCNS outbid Germany’s ThyssenKrupp, as well as a Japanese government-supported bid by a Mitsubishi and Kawasaki joint venture, to win the Australian contract.
