In an effort to give a fillip to indigenous ship building, the Defence Ministry on Monday issued tenders or Request for Proposal(RFP) worth over Rs 15,000 crores for acquisition of various and ships for the Navy and the Coast Guard. A tender for Air Cushion Vehicles (ACV) was also floated for the Army.
Giving details of the tenders, officials said here the RFP for six Next Generation Missile Vessels (NGMVs) was issued to seven shipyards, RFPs for 8 Fast Patrol Vessels (FPVs) and 12 Air Cushion Vehicles (ACVs) and eight Missile-cum-Ammunition Barges were issued to shortlisted Indian shipyards. The RFP for ACVs also includes the initial requirement for six ACVs of the Indian Army.
In order to make the process of qualifying the shipyards for the issue of RFPs for shipbuilding projects of various ships and craft of the Navy and the Coast Guard more objective and to encourage participation by a larger number of Indian shipyards, an exercise was undertaken by the Ministry along with Indian Navy and Coast Guard.
This led to rationalisation of guidelines for capacity assessment of shipyards that have been promulgated recently.
Rationalisation and promulgation of financial selection criteria have paved the way for issue of RFPs for a large number of shipbuilding projects that have been pending. Further, in a significant move to encourage smaller shipyards, participation in the projects with the anticipated annual outflow of less than Rs 75 crore has been restricted to smaller shipyards having an average annual turnover less than Rs 500 crore.
As regards ACVs, in addition to a wide application in military and coastal surveillance, these vehicles have substantial potential in the commercial sector like civil transportation, disaster management and tourism. Considering the need for absorbing the relevant design and construction technology for building these craft in India at affordable cost, a feature to encourage joint development of design by Indian shipyards in collaboration with a foreign design house of ACVs or by sourcing the design for construction of ACVs with substantial Indian content has been included in the RFP for ACV, they said.
