Kick-starting one of the Indian Navy’s most important weapon construction programmes, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) issued a tender on Tuesday for building six conventional submarines, at an Indian shipyard, in technology partnership with a chosen global original equipment manufacturer (OEM). The MoD has pegged the cost of six submarines at about Rs 43,000 crore.

       This means that each boat (navies traditionally refer to submarines as ‘boats’) will cost a staggering $1 billion. This six-submarine acquisition, code-named Project 75(I), follows on from the ongoing ...