New Delhi: The Ministry of Defence signed contracts worth Rs 53,866.50 crore with Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers and Goa Shipyard Limited on Monday for eight Next Generation Corvettes for the Indian Navy. GRSE will build five, GSL the remaining three.
What makes the order different is who drew the ships. This is the first project in which the Indian Navy has designed the vessels in-house and handed the build to defence public sector undertakings selected through a competitive process. The contracts were signed in the presence of Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh at Kartavya Bhawan-2.
The ships are not small. At 3,800 to 4,000 tonnes of displacement, these corvettes overlap with smaller frigates, well above the 500-2,000 tonne band that traditionally defines the class. They are expected to exceed 30 knots, with a range of 4,000 nautical miles at 14 knots, and will carry 160 sailors and 21 officers.
The armament includes a 76 mm super rapid gun mount built by BHEL, eight surface-to-surface missiles, 24 anti-missile defence weapons and two triple 324 mm torpedo tubes. The sensor suite covers surface, air and fire-control radars, an infrared search and track system, a hull-mounted sonar, an active towed array sonar and a combat management system, allowing the ships to work across air, surface and sub-surface domains.
They will replace the Khukri-class corvettes, of which INS Kuthar and INS Khanjar remain in service, and the four Kora-class vessels. Roles listed by the ministry include protecting maritime trade routes, anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare, coastal defence, littoral combat and surveillance.
The ministry put the industrial effect at about 72 lakh person-days of employment in the shipyards and 460 lakh person-days in ancillary industries and MSMEs over ten years.
The money has moved before. The project first came to the Defence Acquisition Council in June 2022 at a cost of around Rs 36,000 crore, and the Cabinet Committee on Security cleared it days before the signing at a reported figure above Rs 40,000 crore. The ministry's statement does not explain the gap with the contract value.
The market read it quickly. GRSE shares rose over 4 per cent in Tuesday morning trade. The first ship is targeted for delivery by 2030.