Russia, India to sign addendum on Adm Gorshkov contract

Russia and India will sign an addendum to the original contract to upgrade the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier, a top official of the Russian ministry of defence said Monday.

Adm Gorshkov/INS Vikramaditya model

Moscow and New Delhi have settled a long running dispute over the final cost of the project to upgrade the aircraft carrier. The original $1.5-billion contract, signed in 2004, was considered to be inadequate by Russia as it had grossly underestimated the scale of the work involved and even as commodity and service costs shot up in the period 2007-08.

It then demanded an additional $1.4 billion to complete the upgrade project which was turned down by India. It is being given to understand that both India and Russia may have compromised on a final figure of $2.3 billion.

The original $1.5-billion 2004 contract included delivery of MiG-29K Fulcrum carrier-based fighters.

The work on the aircraft carrier was to be completed in 2008, but is now headed for completion only sometime in 2012.