New Delhi, August 04: Facing flak over the controversial Gorshkov aircraft carrier deal, the government on Tuesday indicated that it will renegotiate the terms with Russia.
Minister of State Defence Pallam Raju said that India will once again hold talks on the terms of agreement including the price with Russia but maintained that India may have to go through the deal since it urgently needs aircraft carriers.
“India is going to sit down with Russia to re-negotiate Gorshkov deal. Cost of the carrier has shot up but since the Navy needs the 3 carriers we have to go through with the deal,” Raju was quoted as saying by a news channel.
Recently, stung by CAG criticism for escalating cost of second-hand aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov bought from Russia, the government had assured the Rajya Sabha that it would agree to a fresh price for the warship only after going through the audit report.
India had bought the 45,000-tonne Gorshkov from Russia in January 2004 at a total cost of USD 974 million, which included its refit and repair.
As the repair and refit of Gorshkov began in the Sevmash Shipyard, Russians made an additional demand for USD 1.2 billion towards the escalating cost of the work.
After revising the repair costs three times since 2007, Russia made a final demand for additional USD 2.9 billion in February this year.
The CAG report for 2008 laid in Parliament last week had slammed the Defence Ministry for buying the old warship at the price of a new aircraft carrier.
–Agencies