The photograph above shows Vice Admiral NN Kumar, the Indian Navy’s Controller Warship Production & Acquisition, at the Sevmash shipyard last month (leading the Indian Review Team), getting a guided tour of the Vikramaditya (formerly Admiral Gorshkov). The refurbished STOBAR aircraft carrier faces mooring trials in less than six months.
Vice Admiral Kumar’s team of observers did, however, note several delays in scheduled refit tasks, serious enough for him to call a meeting with representatives of the JSC United Shipbuilding Corporation, JSC Sevmash, Nevskoye Planning & Design Bureau, the Electropribor Research Institute and of course, Rosoboronexport. Sources say Vice Admiral Kumar has asked for all the earmarked tasks to be put on the fast-track, and to be completed before the next visit by the Indian Review Team in January 2011.
Photo: JSC Sevmash
Delays are the only things that are a constant with this project. I wonder if there is a language in the revised contract that allows a penalty for any future delays. If not, it should be obvious that we do not know how to negotiate with such repeat offenders.
Either the the IN is going to rue the day they got into this deal for a long, long time to come; or something shady is going on and perhaps IN is in the process of pulling out a coup of sorts: a la MKI style. Anyone willing to hazard a guess?? Perhaps a good topic for Shiv to undertake some serious investigation. If indeed it turns out to be the latter, it could well turn out to be the best scoop of the 1st quarter of this century.
Sadly the Indian Aircraft Carriers at Kochi are likely to be even more delayed. Funnily enough the Chinese look set to begin trials abroad the Varyag despite having no Russian expertise to call upon in refurbishing it.
In next 2-4 years, China will have four fully loaded ( read. Nulcear tipped) , aircraft carriers. Two in our immediate neighbourhood.
The Indian naval superiority will then go to davy jones locker. i e. bottom of the sea.