On August 24, this year, a tranche of 22,000 odd documents of the Indian Navy’s $3.9 billion Scorpene submarine project carrying sensitive data relating to the submarines’ intelligence gathering frequencies, diving depth, endurance and weapons specifications ended up in public domain.
Advertisement
“Of course it’s a different submarine to the one that we are going to build in collaboration with the French but it is absolutely critical to maintain the highest level of security”.
An official at Mazgaon Docks said the firm was focused on completing the original order of six Scorpenes and that he was not aware of any plan to build more. “Therefore, the question of cancellation does not arise”, an Indian Ministry of Defense spokesperson said.
The deal for the Barracuda-class submarines is worth up to 40 billion U.S. dollars, with the first subs to come into service in approximately 2030.
The Indian Defence Ministry denied any such negotiations.
Hangzhou, China: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today discussed India’s NSG membership with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and also raised the issue of the confidential data leak of the Indian Scorpene Class submarines with French President Francois Holland on the sidelines of the G20 Summit.
According to officials, India has asked the defence contractor to provide information about the extent of the leak and how the documents were released to The Australian.
The report said Hollande said that the leak from French company DCNS was unacceptable.
“The leak of those documents, they were not top secret documents which would obviously be very serious”, Pyne told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Monday.
Not just this, DCNS might also lose on the much awaited Air Independent Propulsion system enabled submarines.
“If that is gone, then you might as well say goodbye to the submarine”.
A spokesman of the Indian Navy confirmed that the orders would not be placed for three more submarines.
And before the release of the G20 communique, which will address the global steel glut, the Australian prime minister said an adjustment in the global steelmaking industry would require careful management, especially in the G20 host country China, which is often blamed for the current level of overproduction.
The Indian government has approved the acquisition of the next generation of submarines beyond the Scorpene, in an project estimated at $8 billion.
Advertisement
After the statement of “Scorpene leak is not a big worry” by Defense Minister Mr. Manohar Parrikar, India’s Navy Chief Sunil Lanba has named the Scorpene information leak as “a matter of genuine concern” and has shown a big worries to handle this major issue.
