THE INDIAN government has approved a clutch of agreements with Russia for military hardware estimated at more than US$4 billion (€2.9 billion) ahead of prime minister Vladimir Putin’s day-long visit to New Delhi today, spawning a possible arms race in a highly volatile region.
The cabinet committee on security (CCS) headed by prime minister Manmohan Singh confirmed the long negotiated and highly contentious $2.34 billion deal to refurbish Admiral Gorshkov, the 44,500-tonne second-hand aircraft carrier which the Indian navy acquired in 2004 for the price of its refit.
Russia had originally agreed to retrofit the 23-year-old decrepit carrier crippled by a fire in 1994 for $975 million, but the eventual cost of resurrecting it had almost tripled, resulting in bitter acrimony with Moscow, the largest supplier of assorted weaponry to India for more than four decades.
The carrier is now likely to be delivered in 2013, almost four years behind schedule, because of the price wrangle.
The CCS also agreed the $1.2 billion purchase of 29 additional MiG 29K maritime fighters that would form part of the air arm of an aircraft carrier under local construction at Kochi in southern India.
Military officials said India would also sign an agreement to acquire 40 additional Su-30MKI multi-role fighters to augment depleting force levels in the airforce, as Soviet-era MiG variant combat aircraft were retired. By 2017 the Indian airforce plans on operating some 280 Su 30MKIs, of which some 150 were being constructed locally under licence.
Mr Putin’s visit will also set the stage for the induction of the Nerpa Akula-II nuclear-powered submarine into the Indian navy later this year under a 10-year lease for an estimated $700 million. India would then become the world’s sixth nation, after the five nuclear-weapon states of Britain, China, France, Russia and the US, to operate a nuclear-powered submarine.
The Russian prime minister is also expected to sign agreements on the joint development of a fifth generation stealth fighter and a multi-role military transport aircraft, costs for which will be shared equally between Moscow and Delhi.
India and Russia have agreed to extend their strategic and military partnership by another decade to 2020. This includes the supply of material and maintenance contracts worth some $10 billion to Moscow, which remains India’s largest material supplier. Mr Singh, meanwhile, is also likely to ask Mr Putin for access to nuclear reprocessing technology for civilian use.
Russia is currently constructing two 1,000MW light water plants in India’s southern Tamil Nadu state, with four more proposed, but that number is likely to increase exponentially.
In December 2009 Russia signed an agreement with India to expand civil nuclear co-operation that was free from all restrictions, guaranteeing against any future curbs or events.