The defence minister, Manohar Parrikar inaugurated a submarine assembly workshop at the Mazagon Dock Limited (MDL) on 28th May in an effort to increase the indigenisation in submarine construction than the present.
The state-of-the-art submarine assembly workshop at the MDL in located in Mumbai, Maharashtra.
Here is all you need to know about this advancement in the Indian Navy:
- The new workshop is one of its kinds in the country incorporating green building features such as rainwater harvesting, sewage treatment plant, grey water treatment plant, oily water separator plant for treatment of sewage, grey water and oily water respectively with zero discharge into the municipal drains.
- The newly built Submarine Marine Assembly Workshop is a pre-engineered building structure built at a cost of ₹153 crore.
- At present, MDL is building six Scorpene class of submarines for the Indian Navy, with around 35% of indigenisation. The inauguration is considered as a major step towards self-sufficiency in the area of submarine construction for the Indian Navy which will allow it to build five subs simultaneously and that too, indigenously.
- This facility will enable MDL to go in for the second line of submarines concurrently which is assembling Scorpene class submarines at its East Yard in collaboration with DCNS of France.
- This facility will ensure lesser delays in building indigenous submarines for Indian Navy in the long run as well as for the envisaged second line of Scorpene submarines under strategic Project P 75I.
- The workshop is of size 220M x 45M x 39M with a total of 07 Nos EOT/Semi-Goliath cranes at different levels to handle construction of multiple submarines. The facility also has an Office Complex adjoining the workshop with a unique architectural design.
India had acquired the capacity to build submarines in the early 80s and had built two submarines, INS Shalki and INS Shankul under a technology transfer agreement with German HDW. But then, for nearly two decades, no other submarines were built after India decided to buy Kilo-class submarines from Russia.
