India’s major warships are facing a shortage of spare parts for their normal, medium and short refit programmes, which might explain the regular accidents, including equipment failures that have happened in recent times.
For all warships, particularly those of Russian origin, only 50 per cent spares are available with the Mumbai and Visakhapatnam naval dockyards for refits. These are much below the demand for spares and have resulted in delays in the refit programmes or in low satisfaction levels after the refits.
These refits are usually midlife upgrades of the warships, required to make these modern fighting machines last longer than their envisaged service life that could extend from 20 to 30 years.
In the 37 warships recently audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) for refit performance, it was found that lack of spare parts hit the midlife upgrades, including those of key surface combatants.
The warships hit include the Delhi class and Rajput class mainline Destroyers; amphibious warships such as the recently inducted INS Jalashwa bought from the US in 2007, apart from Gharial and Magar; and the Talwar class frigates built at a Russian shipyard.
Among those audited included those involved in recent accidents/incidents reported since August 2013, including INS Talwar, INS Vipul and INS Konkan.
INS Talwar had rammed into an unlit fishing boat off Ratnagiri in Maharashtra on December 23 last year, throwing off the 27 fishermen onboard into the Arabian Sea. The fishermen were rescued later by the warship and returned to the shore.
A minor fire was reported on board INS Konkan, a minesweeper, when it was under a refit programme at the Visakhapatnam naval dockyard in early December 2013. INS Vipul, a corvette/missile vessel, reported a gaping hole found in the pillar compartment in late 2013.
Though the CAG audit has not directly linked the incidents involving the three warships in the last seven months to the lack of spares, the report submitted by the government auditor to Parliament in February this year points towards the lack of best practices for maintenance of key strategic assets of the Navy and the Defence Ministry establishments in charge of procurements.
The audit found that the Refit Planning Programme had envisaged that the refitting yards have to forward the standard Forecast List (FCL) of required spares, determined on the basis of standard work package, to the material organisation at least 58 weeks (nearly 14 months) in advance in the case of medium refit and normal refit, or before 30 weeks (nearly seven months) in the case of short refit.
In the case of the medium and normal refits, the material organisation are to revert to the naval dockyards at least 20 weeks (about five months) in advance of the expected date of supply. And also required to send a list of items that may not be available so that the firm requirements of the yards could be finalised before the refit programme begins at the dockyard.
Similarly, the Post Defectation Demands (PDD) for defects other than those of the routine type would have to be sent to the material organisation 13 weeks (three months) ahead of the medium/normal refit and eight weeks (two months) in case of short refit.
‘‘We noticed that non-compliance of FCL and PDD of ships based at Visakhapatnam was up to 67 per cent and 100 per cent respectively. At Mumbai, the non-compliance was 73 per cent for FCL and 92 per cent for PDD," the CAG noted.
The lack of availability of spares “resulted in the postponement of essential routines and use of refurbished components, resulting in adverse impact on quality, reliability and longevity of equipment on board,” the report said. “In the absence of supply, the demands were met either by refurbishing old spares or by resorting to local purchases,” it added.
