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Due to conditions mentioned in the request for proposal (RFP) related to air independent propulsion (AIP) system, France's Naval Group announced today that it will be unable to participate in the Centre's P-75I project, under which six conventional submarines will be domestically built for the Indian Navy.

The announcement by Naval Group comes only one day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's trip to Paris, where he will meet newly re-elected French President Emmanuel Macron.

The AIP technology allows a conventional submarine to stay submerged in water for extended periods of time at faster speeds.

The P-75I project was sanctioned by the Defense Ministry in June of last year, and RFPs were then given to two shortlisted Indian companies: Larsen & Toubro and Mazagaon Docks Limited.

According to the Defence Ministry, the two Indian companies (referred to as strategic partners) must form a partnership with one of the five shortlisted foreign companies - ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (Germany), Navantia (Spain) and Naval Group (France), Daewoo (South Korea), and Rosoboronexport (Russia) - before responding to the RFP.

The Defence Ministry will award the 43,000 crore deal after a thorough review of the submissions submitted by the two key partners.

"Due to certain conditions in the RFP, the two strategic partners could not forward the request to us and a few other FOEMs (foreign original equipment manufacturers), and thus we have not been able to place an official bid for the project," Laurent Videau, Country and Managing Director, Naval Group India, said in a statement on Tuesday.

He stated that Naval Group has always been ready to provide the best-in-class and tailored solution for the Indian Navy's P75I project, which is in complete compliance with the Aatmanirbhar Bharat philosophy.

"However, the current RFP requires that the fuel cell AIP (air independent propulsion) be sea proven," he explained. "This is not the case for us now because the French Navy does not use such a propulsion system."

Nonetheless, he continued, the Naval Group will deepen its existing commitments and look forward to a better relationship with India.

"Our focus and efforts are on continuing our collaboration with Indian industry in realising the vision of the Government of India by supporting the Indian Navy for other future developments and projects (maintenance, high-tech tools, indigenous AIP, incremental improvements in the Scorpene-designed submarine, heavy-weight torpedoes, larger ships, and so on)," he said.

India is one of the world's top weaponry importers.

The Centre wishes to lessen its reliance on foreign military platformsand has been boosting the domestic defence manu