The Ministry of Defence has signed two contracts totaling Rs 53,866.50 crore with Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Limited (GRSE) and Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) for the acquisition of eight Next Generation Corvettes (NGCs) for the Indian Navy. The signing ceremony took place on November 02, 2026 at Kartavya Bhawan-2 in New Delhi, presided over by Defence Secretary Shri Rajesh Kumar Singh.
Under the contract allocation, GRSE will construct five corvettes while GSL will build the remaining three vessels. This project represents a significant milestone as the first initiative where warships will be indigenously designed by the Indian Navy and constructed by Defence Public Sector Undertakings selected through a competitive process.
The Next Generation Corvettes will be equipped with state-of-the-art capabilities including advanced missiles, weapons systems, and sensor suites, enabling multi-domain operations across air, surface, and sub-surface missions. These vessels will enhance the Indian Navy's capabilities in safeguarding maritime trade routes, conducting anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare operations, strengthening coastal defense, undertaking littoral combat operations, and performing maritime presence and surveillance missions.
The project is expected to generate substantial employment, with approximately 72 lakh person-days of employment in the shipyards themselves and an additional 460 lakh person-days in ancillary industries and MSMEs over the next ten years. The initiative promotes the use of Made-in-India materials, equipment, indigenous technologies, and Indian skills, representing a major step toward achieving Aatmanirbharta (self-reliance) in defence manufacturing under the Make-in-India initiative.