New Delhi: The Defence Ministry has signed contracts worth Rs 53,866.50 crore with Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Limited (GRSE) and Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) for acquisition of eight Next Generation Corvettes (NGCs) for the Indian Navy, according to an official statement on Monday.
According to the Defence Ministry, the contracts were inked in the presence of Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh here.
Under the contracts, GRSE will construct five corvettes while GSL will build three, the ministry said.
The project is the first in which ships will be indigenously designed by the Indian Navy and constructed by Defence Public Sector Undertakings selected through a competitive process, marking a major milestone in indigenous warship design and construction.
The NGCs will be equipped with advanced missiles, weapons and sensor suites, enabling them to undertake missions across air, surface and sub-surface domains.
“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,” according to the Defence Ministry.
Moreover, the project is expected to generate about 72 lakh person-days of employment in shipyards and 460 lakh person-days in ancillary industries and MSMEs over the next ten years.
The ministry said the project will boost the indigenous shipbuilding ecosystem and is a major step towards Aatmanirbharta in defence manufacturing.
Earlier in October, the government cleared capital acquisition proposals worth Rs 2.12 lakh crore for defence forces out of which nearly 82 per cent of the procurements will be made from Indian Industry.
The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) — in-principle administrative approval to various capital acquisition proposals of the defence forces — at an estimated cost of about Rs 2,12,000 crore.
(IANS)
