“The sudden oil boom too has brought about a lot of prosperity, enabling the Russians to launch new warships and submarines, diverting the workforce,” he said.

Reports from Moscow indicate that the workforce on the Gorshkov project at the Sevmash shipyard has been shifted to a new nuclear submarine project for the Russian Navy. The nuclear submarine, coming up in the adjacent dock where the Gorshkov is being refurbished, is part of Russia’s efforts to revitalise its military strength.

The Navy chief also built a case for reducing dependency on Russia for military equipment given the changing global scenario, saying there has been a “conscious thought” to not put “all our eggs in one basket”.

He said that recent developments have changed the India-Russia equation and in the future, Russia would be treated like any other Defence manufacturing country. “Our current Defence Procurement Policy (DPP) has clearly brought out that there is need for a multi-vendor situation for all procurements. In this case, the lowest bidder gets the contract. This is also how we will deal with acquisitions, with Russia in future,” he said.

He, however, made it clear there would be no going back on the Gorshkov deal. “We have put in $500 million into the project already. We own the ship¿ If they put enough manpower on the ship today, it will take two years plus to complete the work. We would see the ship by early 2011 or late 2010,” he said.

He ruled out the acquisition of the USS Kitty Hawk, the conventionally powered US carrier due to retire next year, saying that it was a “1960s platform”.

... contd.