The ''Makar''-class survey catamarans are a series of six 500 ton steel hull/aluminium superstructure Hydrographic Survey Catamarans being built by Alcock Ashdown (

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the nin ...

) Ltd at its

Bhavnagar Bhavnagar is a city in the Bhavnagar district of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, a state of India. It was founded in 1723 by Bhavsinhji Takhtasinhji Gohil (1703–1764). It was the capital of Bhavnagar State, which was a princely state befo ...

shipyard for the

Indian Navy The Indian Navy is the maritime branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of Naval Staff, a four-star admiral, commands the navy. As a blue-water navy, it operates sig ...

. The ships are designed by an Australian naval architecture firm Sea Transport Solutions, which is based on Queensland's Gold Coast. The deal was canceled due to the extensive delays as the Navy was not satisfied with the timeline and a fresh award for construction of another class of survey vessels to the GRSE has also been undertaken.

Description

The ships are intended to undertake coastal hydrographic survey, required for production of nautical charts and publications aimed at improving navigation through waters closer to coasts. The ships are also capable of limited coastal defence role in an emergency, limited search and rescue and limited ocean research. The ships are equipped with standard hydrographic survey equipment such as advanced electronic positioning system, multi-beam swath sounding systems and sub-bottom profiler. The ships also carry two survey motor boats along with Kongsberg Maritime's ''Hugin 1000'' Autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) for closer investigations. The catamarans are propelled by four Cummins engines as well as two bow thrusters. The entire propulsion, navigational and power management packages of the vessels are integrated in a L&T supplied single state-of-art integrated platform management system. The ship is also equipped with sophisticated Integrated Bridge System from L&T. The ships have ergonomic accommodation for the six officers and 44 sailors.

Construction

Alcock Ashdown (Gujarat) Ltd was awarded this contract, worth on 28 December 2006 through open competitive bidding, beating others like

Larsen & Toubro Larsen & Toubro Ltd, commonly known as L&T, is an Indian multinational conglomerate company, with business interests in engineering, construction, manufacturing, technology, information technology and financial services, headquartered in Mumb ...

, ABG Shipyard and

Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd, abbreviated as GRSE, is one of India's leading shipyards, located in Kolkata. It builds and repairs commercial and naval vessels. GRSE also builds export ships. Founded in 1884 as a small privately- ...

. As per original term of contract, the first vessel was to be delivered by 6 April 2009, while the remaining five vessels were to be delivered within a year from 6 July 2009. This was later rescheduled, the revised delivery period of vessels is from September 2011 to March 2013. The INS Meen is under construction. The remaining four are awaiting administrative clarification.

Ships of the class

Cancellation of the deal

Indian Navy cancelled ₹8000 crore (US$1.1 billion) deal with Alcock Ashdown over 10 year delays in a contract to supply of the six vessels. According to Navy officials only one of the vessels has been delivered and there is no sign or any timeline for the other 5 ships. Further, the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in state ...

has awarded another contract for the construction of four Survey Vessels for

(GRSE) Limited, Kolkata after it became the L1 bidder in the competitive bidding. These ships have a displacement of 3,300 tonnes. Therefore, these ships are likely to be more advanced and outperform the Makar Class which has a displacement of only 500 tonnes. So, this further reduces the chances of the completion of the deal and hence the Makar class will consist of only 1 ship.

References

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