Last year was a historic one for Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd (GRSE). It marked two milestones for the Kolkata-based PSU—the maiden export of a warship by India, CGS Barracuda, and the delivery of the first anti-submarine warfare corvette, INS Kamorta, to the Indian Navy.

This fiscal has begun on a promising note with a big-ticket order, worth R20,000-crore, for advanced technology frigates, the biggest ever for GRSE.

CGS Barracuda is an offshore patrol vessel (OPV), commissioned in March for the Mauritius Coast Guard at Port Louis. The vessel was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Mauritian counterpart Sir Aneroodh Jagnauth. A multi-role OPV, Barracuda goes beyond its conventional role of anti-piracy, anti-smuggling, anti-poaching and search & rescue. It can give logistic support, transport small detachment of troops, do external fire fighting and hold pollution response operation and control.

INS Kamorta, commissioned in August, is the most modern warship, with advanced stealth features, having very low radar cross-section and radiated underwater noise. GRSE chairman and managing director Rear Admiral AK Verma said the ship has been built with over 90% indigenous content—a major step towards self-reliance in warship design and construction. INS Kamorta is also the first frontline warship built in India with indigenously developed DMR249 grade steel, by Steel Authority of India Ltd (Sail). A few countries have shown interest in this corvette.

“Buoyed by the response to our first warship export, GRSE is now concentrating, with a focused agenda, on the export market for its products”, Verma said. INS Kamorta recently paraded itself at the international exhibition in Langkawi and the International Maritime and Defence Exhibition in Singapore. Through INS Kamorta, GRSE showcased its capability to design and build state-of-the-art warship. A confident GRSE is now participating in the global tender for construction of two frigates for the Philippines Navy. GRSE is the only Indian shipyard to have qualified for this international tender, with competition from leading global players like Navantia and STX from Europe, and Daewoo, Hyundai and STX from Korea. GRSE is also participating in the tender for supplying patrol vessels for the Vietnam Border Guards, Verma said.

At home, the government has reposed its faith in GRSE’s competence and expertise once again by awarding the R20,000-crore contract for building three more advanced stealth frigates under project P-17A. GRSE is now constructing 15 ships for the Indian Navy, under three projects. These include three ships of ASW corvette under the P-28 project, eight landing craft utility ships under the LCU project and four water jet fast attack craft under the WJFAC project.

Ever since its takeover by the government in 1960, GRSE, set up in 1884 as Garden Reach Workshop Ltd, has been delivering warships to the Indian Navy. It handed over the first indigenous warship built in India, INS Ajay, to the Navy in 1961. GRSE has since then delivered 94 warships to the Navy, Indian Coast Guard and the Mauritius Coast Guard—the highest number of warships built by any shipyard in the country.

The company also built 777 vessels and craft for different customers. GRSE’s product range boasts of frigates, ASW corvettes, missile corvettes, fleet tanker, landing ship-tanks (large), landing craft-utility, survey vessels, offshore patrol vessel, fast attack craft, inshore patrol vessels and hovercraft. The PSU also makes pre-fabricated portable steel bridges and a variety of deck machinery items used in warship.

Adjudged the best performing shipyard by the government for two consecutive years now, GRSE is focused on becoming a world-class shipbuilding and engineering company. Several initiatives, such as modernisation of facilities, process improvement at micro and macro levels, benchmarking of processes with the industry best, skills development of operatives and officers, and implementation of ERP systems for project management, have been taken to take up construction of latest warships, Verma said.

GRSE clocked its highest turnover of R1,665 crore in FY15, nearly triple the figure of R573 crore in FY08. The company has been paying dividends for the last 22 years. “Our order book is very healthy and we only need to focus on delivery and make more and more warship within India”, Verma said.

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