'India refuses upgraded submarines from Russia'

New Delhi: On the heels of the deadlock over the pricing of Russian aircraft carrier Gorshkov, India has refused to take delivery of the latest submarine INS Sindhuvijay from Russia, saying its cruise missile had not performed up to parameters.

The Navy refused to take delivery of the Sindhuvijay, which completed refit at a shipyard near St Petersburg, after its missiles failed to find their targets in six consecutive test firings, a news magazine reported.

The pre-delivery test firings were carried out between September and November.

"The 50-man crew sent to Russia to sail back with the submarine is set to return to India with the Naval brass taking a stern line by asking the shipyard to rectify the problem before it takes delivery of the sub", the magazine said.

The land attack cruise missile flies over 300 km and delivers a 400 kg warhead to its target with pinpoint accuracy. Naval officials said it would take another year to rectify the defects and prove it in firing trials.

In a contract signed in 2001, India had sent ten Kilo class submarines to Russia for upgradation to make them capable of firing the Klub class land attack cruise missiles.

Sindhuvijay was only the second Indian submarine to be fitted with land attack variants of the missiles. India has purchased 28 Klub class missiles from Russia in 2006 for Rs 844 crore.

Anti-ship variants of the missiles failed in repeated test firings in Indian waters with experts finding the fault to the submarines gyro.

India is now turning to France for new gyros to make the missiles perform in Indian conditions.

Defence Minister A K Antony had told PTI on Wednesday hat though negotiations were on, the deadlock over the delivery of the Gorshkov were still remained to be resolved.

Citing time and costs overruns, Russia had asked for a whooping extra $1.2 billion for the warship, which was scheduled to be delivered in August this year.

The delivery of the carrier has already been pushed back to 2012-13.

India and Russia had a similar spat over the delivery of upgraded IL-38 maritime reconissance aircraft when the Navy complained that its dragon suite were not working to parameters.

The deliveries were only taken after Russian rectified the suites.