The Ministry of Defence (MoD) on Monday signed contracts worth Rs 53,866.50 crore with Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Limited (GRSE) and Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) to acquire eight Next Generation Corvettes for the Indian Navy.
The contracts were signed in the presence of Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh at Kartavya Bhawan-2 in New Delhi. GRSE will build five corvettes, while GSL will construct the remaining three.
According to the Ministry, this is the first project involving ships indigenously designed by the Indian Navy and built by Defence Public Sector Undertakings selected through a competitive process.
The corvettes will carry advanced missiles, weapons and sensor suites, enabling operations across air, surface and sub-surface domains. They will support the protection of maritime trade routes, anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare, coastal defence, littoral combat, and maritime presence and surveillance missions.
The Ministry said the ships would significantly strengthen the Navy’s operational capabilities.
The project is also expected to support domestic shipbuilding through collaboration among defence public sector undertakings, private shipyards and Indian industrial partners, including micro, small and medium enterprises.
Construction is projected to generate approximately 72 lakh person-days of employment in shipyards and 460 lakh person-days in ancillary industries and MSMEs over the next 10 years.
The Ministry said the use of Indian-made materials and equipment, indigenous technologies and domestic expertise would advance self-reliance in defence manufacturing and support the Make in India initiative.
(PIB)
