Naval Ship Building and Repair Facilities in India

Shipbuilding: The ability to design and build warships is a strategic core capability of any
nation. The Indian Navy is ensuring that modern processes are adopted to reduce design
and construction periods, improve cost competitiveness, adopt modern work procedures,
modular construction techniques, and induct modern equipment to enable indigenous
building of the future Indian Navy. Enhanced efficiency is being encouraged in defence and
private shipyards by adoption of successful international practices. The Indian Navy is
further enhancing the productivity by options of series construction, timely freezing of
designs and increase batch sizes for commonality in design and equipment. Development
and continuous evolution of standards and specifications for shipbuilding, weapon
engineering, system engineering and documentation is being addressed.

MAINTENANCE, REPAIR AND REFIT FACILITIES

When the Navy was partitioned in 1947, its only Dockyard was at Bombay. It provided all the
maintenance, repair, docking and refit support that ships needed. The only other ports where
rudimentary facilities existed were at Cochin and at Visakhapatnam, each of which had
minuscule Repair Shops, having a few machine tools, carpentry facilities for minor repairs of
wooden boats, a small slipway and a blacksmith's shop.

In the decades that followed, there were enormous developments:

- The Naval Dockyard Bombay was expanded and modernised.
- Asia's newest Naval Dockyard was constructed in Visakhapatnam.
- The repair workshop at Cochin grew into a Base Repair Organisation and eventually into
the Naval Ship Repair Yard (NSRY).
- The small Portuguese Navy workshop in Goa grew into a Base Repair Workshop.
- And in Port Blair, a NSRY came up alongside a newly constructed naval jetty and a floating
dock.

Currently the various shipbuilding and repair facilities that are enhancing the Indian Navy’s
Blue water efficiency are:

The Naval Dockyards Mumbai and Visakhapatnam are the two premier Dock Yards of Indian
Navy for undertaking repair and refit works of the Western and Eastern Fleet ships. Besides
these Dockyards. The Naval Ship Repair Yards, Kochi, Port Blair and Karwar caters to the
repair/ maintenance needs of the ships based in these naval bases.

(a) The Naval Dockyard Mumbai has a maritime heritage of over 250 years. The yard is
spread over 200 acres of land in the heart of south Mumbai, has a workforce of over 10000
civilian personnel, in 101 technical repair work shops, to cater for the repair and refit work of
the Naval ships based in Mumbai.

(b) The Naval Dockyard, Visakhapatnam was christened on 29 Mar 1972. The present day
yard evolved from being a Boat Repair shop at HMIS Circars in 1940, and later as a Base
Repair Organisation (BRO) in 1953. The yard is spread over 704 acres of land, with 28
jetties, 03 dry docks, slipway and 10 groups of technical repair workshops to cater for the
ships and yard crafts based in Visakhapatnam. The yard is manned by 8000 civilian
employees besides serving Naval officers and men.
(c) The Naval Ship Repair Yard, Kochi has the genesis from BRO established in pre-
independence days for the support of Royal Navy ships. The yard has strength of 900
industrial personnel. The creation of infrastructure at Naval Ship Repair Yard, Port Blair
commenced with formation of Base Maintenance Unit in 1972, upgraded to BRO in 1979,
and further upgraded to Naval ship repair yard in 1993.

The other shipbuilding and repair facilities in India are:

1. Cochin Shipyard Limited:

 Cochin Shipyard was is a fully owned Government of India company. In the last three
decades the company has emerged as a forerunner in the Indian Shipbuilding & Ship
repair industry.
 This yard can build and repair the largest vessels in India.
 Nominated to build the country’s first indigenous Air Defense Ship. 

2. Mazagon Docks Limited:

 Based in Mumbai, it is one of India’s most advanced shipyards.

 The stealth frigates are the product of MDL.
 The SSK

3. Hindustan Shipyard Limited:

 During the 1939-1945 World War, an urgent need arose to build merchant ships in
India to replace Britain's wartime losses. In 1941, the Scindia Steam Navigation
Company was given a site at Vishakhapatnam on the east coast of India. It launched
its first merchant ship in 1948.
 In due course, this shipyard was taken over by the Government and renamed
Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL).
 It caters to the needs of Indian Navy and is on its way to equip the force with
advanced corvettes.

4. Goa Shipyard limited

 In 1957 the Portuguese established, at the mouth of the River Zuari, a small
shipyard named 'Estaleiro Navais de Goa' to construct and repair ore carrying
barges, provide assistance to maintain and refit merchant ships and assist visiting
Portuguese warships.
 In 1967, GSL started taking orders for Indian navy.
 Between 1975 and 1977, the building berths were extended, new slipways and a
fitting out jetty built, overhead cranes installed, etc.
 This enabled GSL to construct, between 1980 and 1987, minor war vessels like
Landing Craft Utility, Torpedo Recovery Vessels, survey craft and Seaward
Defence Boats.
 From 1990 onwards, GSL started constructing larger ships like offshore patrol
vessels and survey ships and participate in the licensed production of Russian
400-tonne missile boats.
 Currently it is equipping the naval force with fast attack crafts and OPV’s.
5. NSRY Karwar:

 Based in INS Kadamba, Karwar, this facility has India’s first fully automated Ship Lift
systems.
 It is capable of docking and repairing all the ships of the navy except tankers and
Aircraft carriers.
 This facility is being installed in GSL also.

6. FDN Andaman (NSRY Port Blair):

 It is located in Port Blair.

 An advanced repair facility with modern systems and the only one of its type in India
 It was made for a private company and later on taken over by Indian navy.
 To date 75 ships have been docked.

Overview of Warship Design and Construction

 Leander Class Frigates: Nilgiri, Himgiri

 Survey ship Darshak (French design, built at Hindustan Shipyard)
 Seaward Defence Boats (SDBs) Mk I: Ajay, Abhay, Akshay, Amar, Ajit and Atul
 Fleet Tug: Gaj
 Inshore Minesweepers: Bhatkal and Bulsar
 Yard craft (harbour tugs, grab dredgers, bucket dredgers, hopper barges, oilers,
HSD tankers, Avcat tankers, ammunition barges, water barges, victualling
barges, ferry craft, diving boats, water boats, berthing pontoons, boat pontoons
etc.)

Frigates

 Leander Class: Udaygiri and Dunagiri

 Improved Leander Class: Taragiri and Vindhyagiri
 Project 16 Godavari Class: Godavari, Ganga and Gomati

Missile Corvettes

Project 25 Khukri Class: Khukri, Kuthar

General

 Landing Ship Tank-Large (LST-L): Magar

 Offshore Patrol Vessel: Savitri
 Cadet Training Ship: Tir
Minor War Vessels

 Seaward Defence Boats Mk II: T 51 to T 55

 Seaward Defence Boats Mk III: T 56 to T 61
 Landing Craft Utility (LCUs) Mk I: L 31 and L 32
 Landing Craft Utility (LCUs) Mk II: L 33 to L 35
 Landing Craft Utility (LCUs) Mk III: L 36 to L 39

Destroyers

Project 15 Delhi Class: Delhi, Mysore and Mumbai

SSK Submarines

Shalki and Shankul

Under Construction in 2004

Destroyers

Project 15 A: Improved Delhi class

Frigates

 Project 16 A Improved Brahmaputra class

 Project 17 Shivalik class