India lifts lid on nuclear submarine programmes

摘要

The Indian Navy (IN) has confirmed publicly for the first time that it is taking delivery of a Russian Akula I (Bars)-class nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) as well as a locally designed and built SSN known as the Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV).rn"Negotiations with Russia are on and we will have [an Akula] platform available to us," said India's Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, substantiating an agreement the IN has assiduously denied since it was signed in January 2004.rnAdm Mehta also said that the state-owned Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) would in two years complete construction of the ATV, which he referred to as a "technology demonstrator". For decades, Indian officialdom has denied the ATV's existence.rnThe 5,000-ton demonstrator is being built jointly by the DRDO, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the IN at Visakhapatnam, headquarters of the navy's Eastern Fleet.rnSince its inception in 1976, two years after India's first underground nuclear test, the ATV programme has invariably been headed by retired naval officers, making it easier for the IN to deny.