Four of Eight Pakistan Navy Submarines Will Be Built In Karachi

ISLAMABAD: China will build in Karachi four of eight submarines that it is selling to Pakistan.

Minister for Defence Production Rana Tanveer Hussain told at the inauguration of the Defence Export Promotion Organisation (DEPO) Display Centre in the federal capital that the deal for the acquisition of submarines from China had been finalised and four of them would be built here.

He further said that construction of the submarines would simultaneously begin in Pakistan and China.

China, he said, would transfer the technology to Pakistan for submarine construction.

The implementation of the agreement would augment the existing submarine related capacity. One of the three Agosta 90-B submarines in Navy’s fleet — PNS Hamza commissioned in 2008 — was assembled at the Karachi Shipyard and Engineering Works. The other two Agosta 90-B submarines — PNS Khalid and PNS Saad — were also indigenously overhauled and retrofitted with air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems in 2011.

The three Agosta 90-B submarines of French design form the core of Pakistan’s current submarine fleet that also includes two ageing Agosta-70 submarines.

Mr Hussain did not specify when the construction would begin, but said it would be happening soon. A training centre would be set up in Karachi for this purpose.

The minister did not either say which type of submarines were being purchased from China. It is, however, speculated that the deal was for Yuan-class Type-041 diesel-electric submarines equipped with AIP systems.

Navy has been pursuing different options for expanding its submarine fleet. Naval officials say that more submarines were needed to address force imbalance with India, which too is increasing and modernising its fleet of submarines.

Pakistan had earlier explored the options of buying submarines from France and Germany, but those deals did not materialise.

PRIVATE-PUBLIC PARTNERSHIP: Mr Hussain said the government would encourage private-public partnership in defence production to improve the efficiency of the sector.

“We can compete with the best in the world only through a national effort,” he said, adding that the government would extend all possible cooperation to private sector in this regard.

He said that this was “the beginning of a new approach”.

The minister said the country needed indigenously developed hardware, which was also technologically innovative.

The Sindh High Court Stalled A 1 Gigawatt Power Peoject Due To The Evironmental Safety Issue!!

The Sindh High Court on Thursday blocked the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission from establishing two nuclear power plants on the outskirts of Karachi in violation of environmental laws.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at a ceremony launching the construction of the atomic power plant at Paradise Beach.

Hearing a petition filed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Dr. Pervez Hoodhboy, Dr. A. H. Nayyar and Arif Bilgrami, a two-member bench led by Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar issued notices to the PAEC, the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority chairman, the Sindh Environment Protection Agency director general, the Pakistan Environment Protection Agency chairman and the Sindh Environmental and Alternative Energy Department to respond to the complaints by Nov. 11.

 

Sindh High Court

During proceedings on Thursday, the petitioners’ counsel submitted that the PAEC intended to build the K-2 and K-3 reactors using the ACP-1000 design, which has not been constructed or tested anywhere else. The 1,100MW power plants, which are to be built by the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), have “unclear” safety precautions, according to the counsel, who added that any malfunction could prove disastrous for the 21 million estimated residents of Karachi.

Atomic Power Plant

The petitioners’ lawyer claimed that the nuclear disasters in Japan (2011) and Ukraine (1987) had raised concerns about the safety measures adopted in nuclear plants. He said reactors located so close to a major population hub like Karachi required planning for mass evacuation in case of a nuclear disaster. He told the judges that the city lacked the infrastructure for evacuations.

According to the lawyer, the nuclear project was granted an environmental impact assessment without fully complying with environment protection laws, adding that no public hearing had been organized to take all stakeholders’ concerns into consideration. The lawyer urged the judges to declare the project illegal until a public hearing could be organized to determine the suitability of the reactor location.