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Gorshkov: ‘India and Russia must agree on cost revision’

MOSCOW: India and Russia should agree on the cost escalation of the aircraft carrier Gorshkov in the next few months, with New Delhi agreeing to pay extra, but not as much as the Russian side wanted.

“We will pay more for the Gorshkov, but much less than the Russians have asked,” said Indian Navy Chief Admiral Suresh Mehta, who arrived in Russia on Thursday on a six-day visit.

The naval chief expects the two sides to wrap up talks on a new price for the Gorshkov refit within two-three months.

It will then take the Russian Sevmash shipyard till mid-2010 to overhaul and modernise Gorshkov.

Following 18-month-long intensive sea trials the aircraft carrier, re-christened INS Vikramaditya, will be handed over to the Indian Navy in 2012.

The ship was originally scheduled to have been delivered this year.

The delay will force India to undertake another refit of the Viraat aircraft carrier to keep it in service till the INS Vikramaditya has been inducted.

Meanwhile in May Russia will deliver, after a “slight delay”, the first of the 16 MiG-29K fighter planes for deployment on the Gorshkov, Admiral Mehta said after visiting the MiG aircraft factory in Lukhovitsy near Moscow.

Asked to comment on his earlier opposition to the price revision of the Gorshkov, Admiral Mehta said the original contract would not be revised.

“We are discussing only things overlooked in the original contract,” he said

Indian specialists, who inspected the Gorshkov earlier this year, agreed that the volume of work envisaged in the original contract had been heavily underestimated.

A more thorough technical audit of the ship after its equipment had been dismantled revealed the need for extra work.

Admiral Mehta compared the situation to the purchase of a second-hand car.

“When the mechanic opens the engine he finds it’s no good and should be replaced with a new engine,” the naval chief said.

The Gorshkov will get new engines, new diesel boilers, new generators, electrical machinery, communication systems, distillation plants and many more pieces of equipment.

Indian officials said it will be a 90-percent new ship that will remain in service for 30 years.

Admiral Mehta denied reports that the United States had offered to gift India its Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier, which is due for decommissioning.

Even if the offer were made, India would not accept it, he said, because the ship was “too old, too big.”

The naval chief said that there would be no upward revision of the price to be paid by India for the leasing of a Russian nuclear submarine even as he confirmed that the construction of the Akula-class submarine had run into delays.

From Moscow Admiral Mehta will go to Severodvinsk in the Barents Sea, where the Gorshkov is undergoing refit at the Sevmash shipyard.

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Gorshkov: ‘India and Russia must agree on cost revision’

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