Kangnam To Build Minesweepers Ships in India
South Korea's Kangnam Corporation will jointly build 12 mine countermeasure vessels (MCMV) in India in collaboration with India's state-owned Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL), reports Hindustan Times.
The project comes under under the Modi government’s Make in India programme and is likely to cost more than Rs 32,000 crore ($4.8 billion).
“We are in the final stage of concluding the contract. It should be done in three to four weeks,” Hindustan Times quoted GSL chairman Rear Admiral Shekhar Mital as saying.
The navy needs to fill gaps in its mine warfare capability. Its existing mine counter-measures force consists of six vessels bought from the erstwhile Soviet Union in the late 1970s.
It requires 24 minesweepers. Mital said infrastructure was being scaled up swiftly at the shipyard to kick off the construction of the ships.
Kangnam will transfer technology and help in the production of the MCMVs. However, no details of the business arrangement between the South Korean company and GSL is known.
After absorption of technology from Kangnam, the shipyard will be able to build these MCMVs on its own at a later stage, a GSL source said.
MCMVs use specialized composite material and high grade steel and are equipped to detect all kinds of underwater mines. The Indian Navy operates around six aging Russian made MCMVs.
Indian Navy has a total requirement of 24 MCMVs and there will be an additional order of 12 MCMVs to top the current order of 12 MCMVs
