The Ministry of Defence today signed contracts worth over 53 thousand eight hundred crore rupees with Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited and Goa Shipyard Limited for the acquisition of eight next-generation corvettes for the Indian Navy.

The contracts were inked in the presence of Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh in New Delhi.

Under the contracts, Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited will construct five corvettes, while Goa Shipyard Limited will construct the remaining three.

The Ministry said that the project marks a significant milestone as it is the first project in which the ships will be indigenously designed by the Indian Navy and constructed by Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) selected through a competitive process.

These next-generation corvettes 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 subsurface domains.

The Ministry said that the induction of these ships will significantly enhance the Indian Navy’s operational capabilities in safeguarding maritime trade routes, conducting anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare operations, strengthening coastal defence, undertaking littoral combat operations, and carrying out maritime presence and surveillance missions.

It said that the project will provide a significant impetus to India’s indigenous shipbuilding ecosystem by strengthening collaboration among DPSUs, private shipyards and Indian industrial partners, including MSMEs.

The construction of these ships is expected to generate approximately 72 lakh person-days of employment in the shipyards and 460 lakh person-days in ancillary industries and MSMEs over the next ten years.