Vikramaditya Trials: India May Impose $115-mln Delay Penalty on Russia

09.10.2012 Indian defense ministry is concerned over the problems happened to aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya (former Russian Admiral Gorshkov) and wants to impose about $114 mln penalty on Russia for delayed delivery of the ship, reports The Economic Times.

India has a right to charge a 5% penalty on the $2.5-bln Russian contract in case of delayed delivery of a warship, said an Indian defense ministry's spokesman.

Final decision will be made only after Wednesday's talks between Russian and Indian defense ministers, added the source.

Meanwhile, Russian vice premier Dmitry Rogozin told reporters on Oct 2 that all disputes over the carrier would be settled within a month. "We are sure that all problematic issues will be resolved before the Russia-India Summit coming in early November", Rogozin said at the Russia Calling forum.

The politician explained that the discussion will be held at two bilateral organizations. The first deals with military technical cooperation and convened on Oct 4 in Delhi, and the second so-called "big intergovernmental commission" will take place there on Oct 15.

The state panel held a session at Sevmash shipyard last week in order to set timeline required to eliminate all defects.

"The panel came to conclusion that the ship's delivery date must be postponed for autumn 2013 with the view to fix all malfunctions including replacement of boilers' insulation", said a representative of United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC).

He confirmed that the reason for the problem reducing the ship's full speed from designed 29 to 27.9 knots was overheat of boilers which was a result of low-grade Chinese firebricks used as thermal insulator instead of asbestos.

The USC spokesman also added that the question of postponing delivery date had been discussed with the Indian partners.

On Sept 28, Chinese authorities said their country had not exported firebricks for INS Vikramaditya.

It was reported on Sept 21 that some other problems had been revealed during sea trials of aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya being refitted in Russia for Indian Navy. The defects were found in systems purchased from Poland and the UK.

On Sept 17, there were first reports that Russia would have to postpone delivery of light aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya being modernized for Indian Navy due to problems revealed in the ship's powerplant.

Nevertheless, test flights of deck-based fighters MiG-29K/KUB were going on up to schedule.

Recall that until recent time it was planned to hand over the carrier on Dec 4, Indian Navy Day. The delivery deadline had been postponed many times. Initially, India was supposed to receive the ship back in 2008.