Eight New Corvettes for the Navy: Rs 53,866 Crore Contracts Signed With GRSE and Goa Shipyard
The Defence Ministry has signed contracts worth Rs 53,866.50 crore with GRSE and Goa Shipyard for eight Next Generation Corvettes for the Indian Navy — the first project in which Navy-designed warships will be built by public sector yards chosen through competitive bidding.
India's Ministry of Defence signed contracts worth Rs 53,866.50 crore on Monday, 2 November 2026, for eight Next Generation Corvettes for the Indian Navy. The contracts were signed with Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited (GRSE) and Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) at Kartavya Bhawan-2 in New Delhi, in the presence of Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh, according to the ministry's statement issued through the Press Information Bureau.
Under the split, Kolkata-based GRSE will build five of the corvettes and Goa Shipyard will build the remaining three. The signing came less than a week after the Cabinet Committee on Security cleared the project on 28 October 2026.
What the contracts cover
The eight ships form a single programme, the Next Generation Corvette project, also known as Project 28A. The corvettes are to be fitted with advanced missiles, weapons and sensor systems so they can operate across air, surface and subsurface threats, the ministry said. GRSE had emerged as the lowest bidder when commercial bids for the programme were opened in May 2025, and its share of the order covers five ships.
Corvettes are compact, fast warships typically used for patrol, escort and strike roles in coastal and offshore waters. A class of eight new ships is a substantial addition to the Navy's surface fleet at a time when maritime activity and competition in the Indian Ocean region continue to grow.
Why this project is a first
The ministry described the programme as a milestone for a specific reason: it is the first project in which the ships have been designed indigenously by the Indian Navy itself, and the builders are Defence Public Sector Undertakings chosen through a competitive process rather than by nomination. In earlier major warship programmes, design and construction contracts were commonly placed directly with a selected yard. Here, the Navy's own design organisation produced the design and the public yards had to win the work by bidding.
That combination — Indian design, public sector construction and competitive selection — is the part of the announcement most likely to outlast the headline contract value, because it sets a template for how future surface combatants could be ordered.
A programme a decade in the making
The road to Monday's signatures was long. The Navy first floated a request for information for seven corvettes in 2016; the number was later raised to eight when the Defence Acquisition Council approved the project in June 2022, at an estimated cost then put at around Rs 36,000 crore. The contracted value of Rs 53,866.50 crore is well above that early estimate, reflecting both the larger scope and the years elapsed between approval and contract.
What has not been fixed yet
The ministry's statement does not set out a delivery schedule for the eight ships, and reports differ on when the first corvette is expected to be handed over. MagnetDaily is therefore not presenting any single delivery year as settled. What is confirmed is narrower and still significant: the design is Indian, the contracts are signed, the money is committed, and two public shipyards — one in Kolkata and one in Goa — now carry the work.