The collaboration will provide cutting-edge autonomous and remotely operated technologies, but the Navy’s full fleet of Mine Counter-Measure Vessels (MCMVs) is still years away from materialisation.
L&T, acting as the prime contractor, will integrate Exail’s globally proven mine warfare technologies into an unmanned MCM suite that can detect, classify, identify and neutralise naval mines from a safe distance.
This suite will be offered to all shipyards participating in the Indian Navy’s upcoming programme to build 12 MCMVs. Exail, as the technology partner, brings decades of operational expertise, with its systems already validated through deployments across several navies worldwide.
The partnership is aligned with India’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India initiatives, ensuring strong local industrial collaboration and capability development.
The collaboration is particularly significant given India’s long-standing capability gap. The last dedicated minesweeper, the Soviet-built Natya-class INS Kozhikode, was decommissioned in 2019, leaving the Navy reliant on clip-on mine counter-measure suites mounted on select ships.
According to internal assessments, the Navy requires at least 24 MCMVs to safeguard India’s 7,516-km coastline and over 200 ports. Mines pose a grave threat not only to military vessels but also to merchant shipping, with global examples such as Iran’s potential mining of the Strait of Hormuz underscoring the strategic importance of minesweepers.
India’s efforts to acquire minesweepers date back to 2005, when Goa Shipyard Limited issued a request for proposal to Russian, Italian and South Korean shipbuilders. However, disputes over technology transfer and costs stalled progress.
A later attempt to partner South Korea’s Kangnam Corporation collapsed in 2018 after the firm failed to meet RFP criteria. Since then, the Navy has struggled to revive the programme, with a fresh proposal for 12 MCMVs worth around ₹45,000 crore issued only last year. A formal RFP is still pending, and even after contract signing, the first vessel is expected to take at least seven years to be delivered.
Former Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash has repeatedly warned of the operational risks posed by the absence of a dedicated mine counter-measure capability.
He recalled that Pakistan’s submarine PNS Ghazi was tasked with mining Visakhapatnam harbour during the 1971 war, and that India historically maintained adequate MCM capability with British-origin and later Soviet-built vessels.
In the 1980s, recognising Pakistan’s sizeable stockpile of Chinese-origin mines, India acquired two squadrons of six modern Soviet MCMVs each to protect its eastern and western seaboards. The decommissioning of the last of these vessels in 2019 left India without a minesweeper fleet for the first time in decades.
The L&T-Exail partnership therefore represents a crucial step towards bridging this gap. It combines L&T’s strengths in indigenous defence engineering, complex system integration and lifecycle support with Exail’s leadership in unmanned maritime systems.
Senior L&T executive Arun Ramchandani emphasised that the collaboration would not only deliver proven unmanned mine counter-measures but also support the long-term development of sovereign unmanned maritime systems in India. Exail’s CEO Jérôme Bendell echoed this sentiment, highlighting the shared ambition to reinforce Indo-French defence cooperation while building a robust self-reliant naval ecosystem.
Despite this progress, India’s minesweeper fleet remains years away from operational readiness. The Navy continues to rely on interim solutions, but the strategic vulnerability persists. The partnership with Exail offers hope of finally overcoming the delays and disputes that have plagued the programme, ensuring that India can restore a critical capability essential for maritime security and safeguarding sea lines of communication.
Agencies
