Defence Ministry inks Rs 53,886 crore deals for new indigenous warships

New Delhi: The defence ministry has signed contracts worth Rs 53,866.50 crore for the construction of indigenously designed next-generation corvettes (NGCs) that will be capable of multi-domain warfare.

The contracts have been signed with public sector shipyards, Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Limited (GRSE) and Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL), after a competitive process in which private shipyards also took part.

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GRSE, which emerged as the lowest bidder, will construct five of the corvettes. The order has been split, with the second-lowest bidder, GSL, given a contract to make three ships. Private shipyards did not succeed in displacing publicly owned entities in the competitive process, given the ready-made infrastructure and access to easy finance available with government owned yards.

GRSE has a robust order book, with four next-generation offshore patrol vessels for the Navy, three advanced guided missile frigates, eight anti-submarine warfare shallow water crafts and four large survey vessels. "NGCs will be equipped with state-of-the-art capabilities, including advanced missiles, weapons and sensor suites, enabling them to undertake missions across the air, surface and sub-surface domains," said an official, who did not wish to be identified, adding that their induction will significantly enhance Navy's operational capabilities.

The ships will be capable of undertaking anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare operations, coastal defence, littoral combat operations and surveillance missions. The project will provide a significant impetus to India's indigenous shipbuilding ecosystem, according to officials, with the involvement of private shipyards and Indian industrial partners, including micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), as suppliers.

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"The construction of these ships is expected to generate approximately 7.2 million person-days of employment in the shipyards and 46 million person-days in ancillary industries and MSMEs over the next 10 years," the official said. The contract for eight corvettes was originally cleared by the Defence Acquisition Council in 2022, with an estimated price of ₹36,000 crore at the time.