In a major boost to India's indigenous warship-building programme, the Ministry of Defence on Monday signed contracts worth Rs 53,866.50 crore for eight Next Generation Corvettes for the Indian Navy, the largest surface combatant order of its kind in recent years.
The contracts were signed with Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited and Goa Shipyard Limited at Kartavya Bhawan-2 in New Delhi on November 2, in the presence of Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh. Under the agreement, Kolkata-based GRSE will construct five of the corvettes, while Goa Shipyard will build the remaining three. The first ship is expected to be delivered by 2030.
The signing came less than a week after the Cabinet Committee on Security cleared the project, and it marks a milestone that the ministry itself highlighted: this is the first project in which warships indigenously designed by the Indian Navy will be built by defence public sector undertakings selected through a competitive process. GRSE had emerged as the lowest bidder when commercial bids were opened in May 2025.
The project has a long history. The Defence Acquisition Council granted acceptance of necessity for the next-generation corvettes in June 2022, at an approximate cost of Rs 36,000 crore. The contract value signed on Monday, at Rs 53,866.50 crore, works out to roughly Rs 6,733 crore per ship, reflecting the scale and sophistication of the vessels now planned, as well as the time that has passed since the original estimate.
Reports of the signing noted that the ministry's announcement did not explain the difference between the earlier figure and the final contract value, a gap that will likely draw questions in the coming days.
What the Navy is getting is a genuinely multi-role warship. Unlike the ageing single-role missile corvettes they will replace, the next-generation corvettes are designed to fight in the air, on the surface and under water.
They will carry advanced missiles, weapons and sensor suites, enabling them to undertake missions across all three domains, from anti-submarine warfare and maritime surveillance and reconnaissance to search-and-attack missions, coastal and littoral defence, and wider deterrence and maritime security operations.
The ships will replace the Khukri-class corvettes, of which INS Kuthar and INS Khanjar remain in service, and the four Kora-class vessels still with the Navy. The new class is substantially larger and more capable: each warship will measure about 127 metres in length, with a beam of 17.6 metres and a deadweight tonnage of around 4,950 tonnes.
They are expected to exceed 30 knots in speed, with a range of 4,000 nautical miles at 14 knots, and will carry a crew of 160 sailors and 21 officers.
Their armament underlines the step-change in capability. The corvettes will carry a 76 mm super rapid gun mount made by Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, eight surface-to-surface missiles, 24 anti-missile defence weapons and two triple 324 mm torpedo tubes.
It is a weapons fit that allows a single ship to threaten surface targets, defend itself and friendly vessels against incoming missiles, and hunt submarines, a combination that older corvettes, built for narrower roles, could not offer.
Welcoming the deal, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh wrote on X that the construction of the ships will generate approximately 72 lakh person-days of employment in the shipyards and 460 lakh person-days in ancillary industries and micro, small and medium enterprises over the next ten years.
The economic argument is central to the government's case for indigenous warship building: beyond the strategic value of the ships themselves, the order sustains skilled jobs in Kolkata and Goa, deepens the supplier base for steel, electronics and weapons, and keeps high-value manufacturing within the country under the Aatmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India initiatives.
The strategic context is the Indian Ocean, where the Navy's workload has grown steadily. Piracy, smuggling, natural disasters and the protection of sea lanes all demand ships that can stay at sea longer, operate further from base, and switch between roles without returning to port.
The Navy's rescue of the crew of a hijacked vessel in the Arabian Sea this week was a reminder of the constabulary and humanitarian tasks that sit alongside conventional deterrence, and corvettes, smaller and cheaper to operate than destroyers and frigates, are well suited to exactly that mix of duties.
There are, of course, risks. Warship programmes of this size are vulnerable to delays, cost growth and the challenge of integrating complex weapons and sensors from multiple suppliers. The 2030 target for the first delivery leaves a long road ahead, and the Navy will be watching the build schedule closely, particularly since the ships are a new indigenous design rather than a repeat of an existing class.
The fact that the design comes from the Navy itself, rather than a foreign partner, is a point of pride, but it also means that any design problems will have to be solved at home.
The word "stealth" in the description of these corvettes matters as well. A stealth warship is shaped and fitted to reduce its visibility to enemy radar and sensors, giving it a better chance of operating undetected and of surviving an encounter. Combined with advanced sensor suites of their own, the new corvettes are intended to see further and be seen less, a combination that modern navies value highly in contested waters.
For GRSE and Goa Shipyard, the order is transformative. GRSE, which will build five ships, has steadily expanded its order book in recent years, while Goa Shipyard's three ships will anchor its own workload for the next decade. Both yards will need to expand capacity, train workers and manage supply chains that stretch across hundreds of small and medium firms.
Taken together, the deal is one of the most significant naval announcements of the year. Eight stealth corvettes, designed in India, built in India, and armed to fight across every domain, will reshape the Navy's surface fleet as they arrive from 2030 onwards. The contracts signed on Monday are the starting gun; the real test will be the steel cut, the ships launched, and the first corvette commissioned into service.
(Reporting based on The New Indian Express and The Indian Express.)