Indian Navy submarines to get air-independent propulsion system from 2024

But six new Scorpenes being built in India will have imported propulsion systems.

The state-of-the-art “air independent propulsion” (AIP) system that the Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO) is indigenously developing will be ready to drive the Indian Navy’s submarines from 2024 onwards.

Consequently, this AIP will not power the six new submarines that the navy is tendering in a Rs 45,000 crore programme called Project 75-I. Instead, those six boats (as the navy traditionally refers to submarines) will have AIP systems that the foreign vendor must offer.

The Request for Information (RFI), which the navy sent out to global vendors under Project 75-I, kept alive both options—an indigenous AIP, as well as a foreign one. Now,