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karatecatman · Guest

www.hindu.com/2009/05/13/stories/2009051359811200.htm
Russia to deliver nuclear submarine by year-end

Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW: Russia will deliver nuclear submarine Nerpa to India before this year end, as the shipbuilders have fixed the vessel, which suffered an accident last year, and the government agreed to provide funding for sea trials.

The Amur Shipyard had completed all repairs and would shortly resume sea trials, the plant’s CEO, Nikolai Povzyuk, said on Monday.

The trials were halted in November when an accidental discharge of poisonous fire-fighting gas killed 20 and injured over 40.

Mr. Povzyuk said a sea trials team would soon be reconstituted. “All pre-delivery trials are to be completed and the submarine is to be handed over to the Indian side before the end of the year,” news agency Interfax quoted Mr. Povzyuk as saying.

India had leased the submarine, rechristened INS Chakra, for 10 years under a $650-million deal signed in 2004. Initially the submarine was to be inducted last August, and then the delivery was rescheduled to August.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who visited the Amur Shipyard on Monday, said the government would allocate 1.9 billion roubles (nearly $60 million) for the Nerpa sea trials. He also said the state-owned United Ship-Building Corporation would buy out the Amur Shipyard from private owners for a “symbolic price” and inject over $400 million to breathe life into the plant, which has been operating at a 10 per cent capacity.

karatecatman · Guest

India to get Russian nuclear submarine after 17 yr wait

Moscow
India will get its first Akula class Russian nuclear submarine in 2009, equipping its navy with the quietest and lethal underwater war machine after a gap of 17 years to enhance its blue water capabilities.
Factory trials of the multi-role nuclear submarine, christened INS Chakra which India-will get on a 10-year-lease, commenced on June 11. 2008, at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur shipyard and will be followed by sea trials, Russian defence sources said, adding it will be delivered by September 2009.
According to experts, Chakra would help India fill the void caused by the delays in the indigenous Advanced Technology Vessel project to build a nuclear powered, guided missile attack submarine.
Three Indian naval crews for the nuclear submarine have already been trained at the specially set up training centre in Sosnovy Bor near St. Petersburg.
This facility would also be used for training crews for the Indian nuclear submarines of ATV project currently in the advanced stages of development, sources said.
Though they said that India has financed the completion of construction of submarine of project 971 "Shchuka B"(NATO codename Akula) under the USD 650 million deal signed in 2004 as part of the larger Gorshkov package, they did not reveal the cost of the lease of Chakra.
Akula (Shark) is the quietest Russian attack submarine and Chakra has been christened after its predecessor leased by the Indian Navy in 1988 from the erstwhile USSR.
In January 1988, ex-USSR had leased K-43 nuclear submarine of project 670 (NATO codename Charlie) which was with the Indian Navy as INS Chakra till March 1991, when under the intense US pressure beleaguered Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had refused to extend the lease.

(From Defence Technology News)