L&T Mine Warfare System: Indian company Larsen & Toubro, or L&T, has teamed up with France-based Exail to give the Indian Navy an advanced unmanned mine-hunting system for its long-pending Mine Counter-Measure Vessels programme. L&T says the system will use autonomous and remotely operated machines that can detect, classify, identify, and neutralise naval mines in a “safe, stand-off manner”.
In this plan, L&T will act as the prime contractor and Exail will be the technology partner. L&T also says the package will be offered to all shipyards that join the Navy’s upcoming project for 12 mine counter-measure vessels. Exail says its mine warfare systems are already used by several navies and have been tested in real deployments.
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The two companies say the deal is also meant to support India’s own defence industry. L&T has linked the programme to “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” and “Make in India”, and the company says local industry work will be part of the plan. The press release also says the cooperation will strengthen mine countermeasure ability, improve maritime security, and deepen Indo-French defence ties.
Why are These Ships Important?
Mine counter-measure ships are not just regular warships. Their job is to find sea mines, check what they are, and remove the danger before ships sail through. Mines can threaten navy ships, merchant ships, ports, and sea routes. That is why these vessels matter for safe trade and for wartime protection too. The Indian Navy has been filling this gap with “clip-on mine counter-measure suites” on some ships, but that is only a stopgap, not a full replacement for dedicated minesweepers.
The need is still big. An internal Navy assessment says India needs at least 24 MCMVs to protect its 7,516-km coastline and more than 200 major and minor ports. This need is one reason the Navy has kept pushing for a proper fleet for years.
A Long Due Project
India first started talking seriously about building 12 mine counter-measure vessels in 2005. That plan went nowhere after problems over technology transfer, cost, and build method. A later attempt with Goa Shipyard and South Korea’s Kangnam Corporation also failed, and by 2018 that effort had collapsed too. In 2025, the Navy moved a fresh proposal for 12 MCMVs at an estimated cost of around Rs 45,000 crore, and an RFI was issued. But the formal RFP is still awaited. The official RFI says the 12 ships are planned to be built over 08 years and the delivery window is expected between 2030 and 2037.
The delay became more serious after India’s last minesweeper, the Soviet-built Natya-class INS Kozhikode, was decommissioned in 2019 without a replacement ready. That left the Navy without a dedicated minesweeper fleet for the first time in decades. Former Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash had warned in 2019 that this gap could create real operational risk.
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He said the Navy had once had strong mine countermeasure strength on both coasts, starting with British-built ships in the 1950s and later Soviet vessels. He also noted the old wartime danger of mines, including the mission given to Pakistani submarine PNS Ghazi during the 1971 war to mine Visakhapatnam harbour.
In the 1980s, the Navy had brought in two squadrons of six Soviet MCMVs each to guard the eastern and western coasts. But after the last of those ships was retired in 2019, India was left without a proper mine-hunting fleet.
