Navy mulls scrapping Rs 20k-cr tender for building four amphibious warships

Delayed by more than five years, the Indian Navy wants to scrap a more than Rs 20,000 crore tender for building four big-size amphibious warships indigenously in private shipyards.

The tender is for building four Landing Platform Docks (LPDs) for the Indian Navy which were meant for carrying both helicopters and amphibious land warfare assets such as tanks and personnel carriers.

"The specifications for the LPD was issued in 2006 and it has been almost 14 years. Now, we want to withdraw the tender and look around for the advancements in the technology for LPDs world over and then issue a fresh tender," Navy sources told ANI.

The Navy has communicated to the Ministry of Defence about its plans and requested it to withdraw the Request for Proposal in the tender, they said.

Once the Navy has identified the latest developments in technologies in the field of amphibious warships, the Navy would issue a new tender for acquiring these warships, the sources said.

As part of the tender, four warships were to be built for which two Indian firms were in the race including the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence and Larsen and Toubro.

Reliance had partnered with the French Naval Group and L & T was in partnership with the Spanish firm Navantia.

The tender had been hanging fire for many years now due to one controversy or the other including the financial health of the participating companies in the contract.

The commercial bids of the tender were planned to be opened earlier this year but the process was stopped at that time.

As per Navy plans, the warships were to be around 30,000 tonnes with ability to operate helicopters and ability to carry an army battalion, including tanks and armoured carriers.