Swimmer Delivery Vehicle (SDV)/(SOV)
Q. Whats status of the 2-3 mini subs for Marcos to be build HSL? ~ Dhrouba Bhowmik
Answer: The project is secretive in nature and therefore little to no information is available in public domain.
What we do know about this project is that.
1. A budget of 2000 crore rupees was initially proposed for the project. It was later quoted to be between 2000-3000 crore rupees per vessel. But as the final Proposal Tenders weren’t sent out , atleast publicly, therefore it’s not possible to comment on the actual price of the project , if at all it has commenced.
2. The DAC approval only nominated HSL for the project. It was to take 36 months to develop, build, test and deliver a vessel which can deliver commandos to Navy. The vessels are officially called “Special Operating Vessel” for Indian Navy.
Status: The SDV building program like the P75I program which also received DAC clearances along with it, hasn’t seen any movement till now. The deal hasn’t been signed with HSL, and so the construction hasn’t started yet. It seems that the designing process is still not complete.
