The government has been left with little option but to spend approximately Rs 29,000 crore extra from its coffers to complete eight indigenous warships, thanks to shoddy planning and poor execution on the part of the agencies associated with these projects.
Going by the original plan, the three naval projects cumulatively would have cost Rs 9,892 crore and should have gone into service in the last decade. But while cost was revised upwards to Rs 38,855 crore – a jump of Rs 28,963 crore — the projects are six to eight years behind the planned delivery schedule.
These warship building projects are: P-15 A under which Mazagon Dock Limited, Mumbai is constructing three destroyers; P-28 in which Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited, Kolkata is developing four anti-submarine warfare corvettes; and the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier Vikrant, which is under construction at Cochin Shipyard.
All three projects suffer from huge time and cost overruns.
The agencies involved – the defence ministry, Navy and the shipyards – have received flak from a Parliamentary committee, which was “unambiguous” in its observation that such delays could have been avoided so that national monetary resources were not wasted.
The MPs asked the defence minister Manohar Parrikar to penalise those accountable for “frivolous project handling leading to such inordinate delays in the last decade” in order to send “strong signals.”
The panel’s condemnation comes on the eve of the launch of the anti-submarine warfare corvette ‘Kavratti’, which is the last ship in the P-28 category. The ship is slated to be released to water at a function in Kolkata on May 19 in the presence of junior defence minister Rao Inderjit Singh, sources said. It is likely to be commissioned in early 2017.
The cost overrun is the least in P-28, with the current estimate being Rs 7852 crore as against the original estimate of Rs 3051 crore – a jump of Rs 4801 crore. For P-15 A, the pricing has been revised upwards to Rs 11,662 crore from Rs 3580 crore – an increase of Rs 8082 crore. Both are delayed by six years.
The aircraft carrier has the maximum cost increase, from Rs 3261 crore to Rs 19,341 crore – a hike of more than Rs 16,000 crore. It comes with a delay of 8 years. “It could have been avoided by bringing in better intelligibility, vision and coordination among the development agencies, production units and final users,” says the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence in its report tabled last week.