Defence PSU Goa Shipyard to invest ₹1,500 crore in Andhra Pradesh greenfield facility

Visakhapatnam: State-run defence shipbuilder Goa Shipyard is set to invest ₹1,500 crore to build a greenfield facility in Andhra Pradesh on India's east coast, marking its first venture outside of its home base in Goa.

Goa Shipyard, which has been building vessels for the Indian Navy, coast guard, and friendly nations for more than five decades, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Andhra Pradesh government under the state's new maritime cluster policy.

"Due to growing orders, we have felt the need for capacity expansion," Commodore Adikesh Vasudevan, general manager (projects) at Goa Shipyard told ET. "This is the first time that Goa Shipyard will step out of our home base Goa and set up a new facility. We have been looking to expand to the east coast as this will also help us in supplying ships to Southeast Asian countries."


The company currently supplies vessels to South American nations from its facility in Goa on India's west coast.

Vasudevan said the reason for looking at alternate locations beyond Goa, on the east coast, was the timing of monsoons.

"Shipbuilding is an open air activity, and monsoons affect us directly. When monsoons hit Goa, the activity completely stops. But a facility on the east coast would mean the monsoons hit shipbuilding activity at a different time," he explained.

Goa Shipyard had initiated talks with the Andhra Pradesh government for the new facility about eight months ago. The company had sought 200 acres in Machilipatnam. However, the site has yet to be finalised, said Vasudevan.

He said the company chose Andhra Pradesh over other states on the east coast primarily because others do not have a spelt out policy. "We got an invite from the Andhra Pradesh government to initiate talks as they had a new maritime cluster policy. This is how MoU has been finalised," he said.The company plans to build ships of up to 120 meters length and a draught of more than six metres in Andhra Pradesh. The MoU was signed at the two-day CII partnership summit in Visakhapatnam.