New Delhi, Aug. 24: Only seven Indian Navy submarines were operational out of the total fleet of 16 submarines till October last year, a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has stated.

The CAG report noted, “It is pertinent to mention that only seven out of 16 submarines in the Indian Navy are operational and nine submarines are under refit/repair as of October, 2009.”

The CAG report noted that “75 per cent submarines in the Indian Navy fleet have already completed three-fourths of their estimated operational life.” Another CAG report submitted two years ago had said the average operational availability of Indian naval submarines “is as low as 48 per cent”.
Meanwhile, the CAG report also lambasted the “inordinate delay in commissioning the Indian Navy submarine rescue facility in the absence of a conclusive time-bound agreement with the US Navy”.

The CAG report estimated the response time to be 72 hours for launch of any rescue operations of a submarine as it would take that long for the deep submergence rescue vessel, stationed with the US Navy, to reach the rescue site.

The Navy is worried that over the next six years, the numerical strength of the submarine fleet may come down by 40 per cent (due to phasing out) if there is no substantial augmentation of the fleet.