AFP / AFX, NEW DELHI: India will announce a deal 'in the very near future' to construct six Scorpene submarines in partnership with a French firm, Agence France-Presse cited a highly-placed Indian naval source as saying.
The cabinet's security committee had this week cleared the deal, estimated to be worth more than 2 bln eur, with French state-owned shipbuilder Naval Constructions Directorate (DCN), reports said.
The diesel-propelled, 1,600-tonne submarines will be built at Bombay's state-run Mazagaon docks as part of an Indian plan called Project 75 to acquire naval defence know-how, French government sources said.
Indian media reports said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will make the announcement when he stops over in Paris on his way to New York next week.
'There is something bound to happen in the very near future, and an announcement will be made at an opportune time,' the naval source told AFP.
A source close to the deal said talks 'have progressed well, and there is optimism (surrounding) Singh's arrival in Paris'.
Indian Navy spokesman Commander Vinay Garg, however, would neither confirm nor deny the deal's approval by India's highest strategic decision-making body, which is headed by Singh, saying: 'The exact status has not been told to us'.
DCN has been waiting for final approval by New Delhi since early 2003 after concluding talks with the Indian defence ministry that began in 1999.
Earlier this year, the security cabinet asked the ministry to look at the deal again after the price escalated due to New Delhi's delay in approving it.
The pact, which involves the transfer of French technology through DCN, will dramatically increase French influence in India's military market. India already has Russian Kilo-class and German HDW U-209 attack submarines.
As part of the deal, the European consortium EADS will also sell India 36 SM-39 submarine-to-surface missiles, the sources said. The missile can fire at a range of up to 50 kilometres without detection.
