After being handed over to the Indian Navy, it was commissioned as INS Chakra. The submarine was handed over to India on 30 December 2011. Of this, K-152 Nerpa would be leased for 10 years to India at an estimated cost of US$670 million. In 2008, Russia had an agreement pending with India worth US$2 billion for the lease of Nerpa and another Project 971 Shchuka-B-class submarine. Lease to India Ĭhakra in the open sea, flying the Indian Naval Ensign Nikolay Povzyk, the head of the shipyard, complained they had not been paid the 1.9 billion roubles (63.8 million dollars) owed for the work carried out on Nerpa. By October 2009, the work had still not been completed due to the shipyard's electrical supply having been disconnected. 'The old specialists had left, and the new ones lacked professionalism.' An unnamed worker at the Amur shipyard told Komsomolskaya Pravda that there were 'questions about the quality of the metal that was used in building the nuclear submarine', some of which had been bought from China, and alleged that 'when the first trials of the submarine were carried out water was leaking in between the seams! So it is not surprising that the work dragged on.' ĭuring May 2009, the repairs were reported to be almost complete and new sea trials were planned for 15–20 June.

Aleksandr Golts, defence editor of the Yezhednevny Zhurnal newspaper, said that in the 1980s, the Amur shipyard turned out submarines 'one after another, like pancakes,' but from 1993 to 2008 had produced just one. The standard of the vessel's construction were criticised by several commentators. Reports in the Indian media suggest that the resumption of construction was underwritten with Indian funding. It was launched in October 2008 for sea trials, following which it was due to be handed over to the Russian Defence Ministry. In 2007, it was transferred to the Vostok shipyard in the closed city of Bolshoy Kamen, Primorsky Krai, for fitting-out. The vessel was intended to be completed by 2007, but underwent further delays. The partly constructed vessel was mothballed until 2004, when Rosprom (the Federal Agency for Industry) signed an agreement with the Indian government to complete the submarine and lease it to the Indian Navy. Nerpa was laid down at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur shipyard in 1993, but its completion was delayed for nearly a decade due to a lack of funds caused by the economic crisis of the early 1990s. While Nerpa was undergoing sea trials in the Sea of Japan on 8 November 2008, a fire suppression system was accidentally activated, killing 20 civilian specialists and navy crew members and injuring 41 others. In June 2021 Chakra was spotted on the surface escorted by Indian and Russian warships in the Singapore Strait while presumably heading towards the Russian naval base in Vladivostok some media speculated that she was returning to Russia before the expiry of the lease term. The submarine was leased to the Indian Navy in 2011 after extensive trials, and was formally commissioned into service as INS Chakra with the Eastern Naval Command at a ceremony in Visakhapatnam on 4 April 2012. It was launched as K-152 Nerpa in October 2008 and entered service with the Russian Navy in late 2009. India then sponsored further construction and sea trials of the submarine provided it was leased to the Indian Navy for 10 years. The construction of the submarine was started in Russia in 1993, but was suspended due to lack of funding. Nerpa (renamed INS Chakra in Indian Navy service) is a 8,140-tonne (8,010-long-ton) Project 971 (or Project 518 NATO: Akula-class) nuclear-powered attack submarine. Amur Shipbuilding Plant, Komsomolsk-on-Amur

Russian attack akula class submarine