Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) has become the first shipyard to make and deliver 100 warships to Indian naval forces, handing over the 100th vessel to the naval authorities on Saturday last week. The 58-year-old defence public sector undertaking makes vessels for both the Indian Navy and the Indian and Mauritius Coast Guards.
The vessel delivered on Saturday was a landing craft utility (LCU), boasting a top speed of 15 knots (27.78 km) per hour. Each unit can accommodate 216 personnel and is equipped with two close range naval guns to provide artillery support during landing operations. It is an amphibious vessel that can transport and deploy main battle tanks, armoured vehicles, troops and equipment from ship to shore. Currently, these units are based at the Andaman and Nicobar Naval Command and can be used in a variety of situations such as search and rescue, disaster relief operations, supply and replenishment and evacuation from distant islands.
On the same day, GRSE also handed over its 99th warship to the Indian Coast Guard: advanced fast patrol vessel (FPV) ICGS Priyadarshini. The shipbuilder is currently executing an order for five FPVs for the Coast Guard of which the ICGS Priyadarshini is the first to be delivered. The LCU, however, was the sixth among eight such vessels the Indian Navy has placed orders for.
“GRSE has built the largest number of ships for the Indian Navy, with 67 of the 100 handed over to the naval forces,” said GRSE CMD V K Saxena. These include frigates, missile corvettes, anti-submarine warfare corvettes, fleet tankers, landing ship tank, landing craft utility, survey vessels, offshore patrol vessels and fast attack craft.
Currently, the PSU is executing orders worth `21,700 crore and expects that its present order book would go up to over `27,000 crore with the signing of a `5,500 crore contract for making eight warships. “Currently, 14 ships across five projects including four large survey vessels are under construction. Hopefully, we should be signing a `5,500 crore contract for supplying eight Anti-Submarine Warfare Shallow Water Craft in the next one month,” Saxena added.