The ships will ferry food and ammunition; first one to be ready in four years

In a major boost to develop Indian Navy , Hindustan Shipyard Limited, a Ministry of Defence Enterprise, will sign a contract with a consortium formed by five leading shipyards in Turkey for technical collaboration to construct five Fleet Support Ships worth more than ₹16,000 crore.

A high-level delegation from Turkey held talks with the HSL top management here on Tuesday prior to the exchange of documents. The steel cutting is expected by end of 2020.

Earlier, HSL had shelved the plan for forging a strategic partnership with Hyundai Heavy Industries owing to the insistence for building the first ship in South Korea and source major components required for the project from there.

After building the first ship in four years, the remaining will be built in a gap of 10 months each.

Global bidding

In the global competitive bidding process for technical collaboration, eight companies had responded and three of them were found technically qualified.

The Fleet Support Ships will ferry dry items such as food and ammunition for replenishment.

“As per the latest development, the Turkish conglomeration named TAIS and HSL will roll out the first ship in four years. The project will give a big fillip to the MSME sector. All the five ships will be built in Visakhapatnam,” HSL Chairman and Managing Director Rear Admiral L.V. Sarat Babu told The Hindu.

He further said that they would sign the contract with TAIS in a month followed by a formal agreement with the Navy for building the ships.

Technical support

Anadolu Shipyard, the lead member of TAIS with more than 30 years of experience will offer support to HSL for designing and building the Fleet Support Ships. Each ship will have a displacement capacity of 45,000 DWT (deadweight tonnage). As part of the deal, the ‘know-how and know-why’ will be transferred to HSL.

The project will increase the manpower by three-fold and give a big boost to local fiirms nvolved in fabrication, blasting, piping, cable installation and outfitting to meet requirement for the HSL project.