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New Delhi: With Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in Germany to deepen defence ties, a stubborn reality overshadows the visit: the long-pending Project 75(I) programme to locally build six diesel-electric submarines (SSKs), first officially approved nearly two decades ago, remains unsigned with Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems, even as the Indian Navy’s underwater arm continues to hollow out.

However, even if, remarkably, after almost five years of on-and-off negotiations, the deal between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and TKMS-Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) to build six Type 214 SSKs, equipped with air-independent propulsion (AIP) and land-attack capability, is finally signed within the current financial year, the first of these boats will arrive only around 2032. Full programme completion, however, would stretch to 2037–38, if not beyond.

Such an eventuality would push P75(I)’s completion to nearly three decades after its initial approval or Acceptance of Necessity, and close to four decades since the project was first envisaged in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In practical terms, this would mean that acquiring just six SSKs had occupied nearly two generations of planning, approvals, negotiations and eventual construction – turning what was meant to be a swift, structured induction programme to meet urgent operational needs, into an extended saga of delay and drift.

“No self-respecting country, least of all one that aspires to be a Vishwaguru [global leader], can afford such strategic indulgence masquerading as process,” said a two-star Indian Navy veteran submariner. He went on to describe P75(I) as a “tortuous, near-endless effort that has taken decades just to reach the contract stage”.

“At this pace, we are not building maritime capacity but merely institutionalising delay,” he added, declining to be named for fear of repercussions.

Such an indictment is best gauged against the Indian Navy’s current SSK force levels, numbering around 17 boats. These include six Kalvari (Scorpene)-class submarines, around seven of the 10 remaining Sindhughosh-Kilo-class SSKs, and four Shishumar-Type 209/HDW-class German SSKs inducted between the 1980s and the early 2000s. However, a significant portion of this fleet is 30 to 40 years old, sustained through refits and upgrades that only exaggerate, not arrest, declining platform reliability, and rising maintenance burdens.

Moreover, the retirement cycle of these legacy SSKs is no longer theoretical; it is already underway, steadily widening the gap between operational requirements and available capability. The result is an Indian Navy sub-surface force that is shrinking and becoming progressively less capable, even as the maritime threat environment grows more demanding, leaving the Indian Navy to manage decline rather than build operational muscle.

Early Soviet-era Kilo-class boats, for instance, already at or beyond 35 or 40 years of service, are expected to retire between 2025 and 2030, while the German-origin Type-209s, now 30 to 38 years old, will........

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