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India aims for shipbuilding starsIndia aims for shipbuilding stars

Delhi recently announced a $3 billion injection of funds to kickstart major shipbuilding in the country aiming to enter the top 10 shipbuilding nations by 2030 and top five by 2047.

Nick Savvides, Europe correspondent

February 5, 2025

3 Min Read
Naval architect Nitesh Ranvah standing in shipyard
Naval architect Nitesh RanvahCredit: 21 Knots

At a Glance

  • India needs to build broader engineering base to support shipbuilding ambitions
  • Skilled labour pool available from workers who are currently employed by shipyards overseas
  • Funds will be used to develop new shipbuilding clusters of up 1.2 million gross tonnes each

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in her budget speech for 2025-26 on 1 February the injection of cash will, reportedly, be used to develop the Shipbuilding Financial Assistance (SBF) policy and to encourage public, private partnership deals.

Making this policy a reality will require skilled shipbuilding labour and the development of a broader shipbuilding and engineering industry in order for Indian shipbuilders to compete with the industry’s giants in China and South Korea.

Naval architect Nitesh Ranvah, who is also the CEO and founder of maritime consultancy 21 Knots, believes that to be successful India’s shipbuilding industry must build a broader engineering base to support the growth of yards.

“The issue, I think is India does not have the ecosystem for the whole shipbuilding. So, just having a shipyard and skilled labour is not enough. We don't manufacture any of the equipment for the shipping industry, from steel to main engines to gensets, we end up importing a lot of machinery,” explained Ranvah.

Though he was not concerned about training skilled staff to meet the needs of this burgeoning maritime construction sector.

“Skilled people are not a problem in India. If you see yards across Singapore, UAE, Bahrain. Oman, all of them are Indian skilled labourers who are working there,” Ranvah pointed out, “and they would prefer to work in their home country,” he added.

Meanwhile, in response to the concern over machinery the Indian authorities have agreed a deal with the Korea Marine Equipment Association (KOMEA), a non-profit entity of the South Korean government.

India’s Economic Times website Infra.com reports: “KOMEA has formally pledged its backing… supply marine equipment and spare parts and support localisation of marine equipment and spare parts.”

In addition, KOMEA will also offer onsite education, services for joint design and construction of sophisticated modern vessels and support the modernisation Indian production facilities at yards while also supporting technology transfer to improve production processes.

India’s Shipping Minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, said: “It is reassuring to see that the budgetary initiatives for India’s marine sector are focused on unlocking its vast potential and enhancing existing assets through upgrades, modernisation, and automation.”

According to the minister the funds will be used to develop new shipbuilding clusters of up 1.2 million gross tonnes (GT) each.

In addition, the move to attract private investment will help to promote modernisation including green technology.

In Cochin that innovation has already begun as Ranvah explains: “Cochin yard has already won an order for two hydrogen powered container ships of 7,000 teu each for Samskip, in The Netherlands, which will be delivered by the end of this year or in the first quarter of next year,” said Ranvah.

The yard has already delivered an order for fully electric and autonomous, 67 metre, ferries for ASKO in Norway, with the hull’s built at Cochin and the technology supplied by Kongsberg.

It is a turnaround for India’s yards that has been planned since the beginning of the decade and is now coming to fruition.

Ranvah explained that India’s private shipyards needed reviving after they were almost all “wiped out” after the 2008 currency crisis, “Sixty to 70% of them went bankrupt between 2010 and 2017,” while the government owned yards survived Indian Navy orders.

Pipavav is an example, the company having undergone several restructurings finally defaulted on loans in 2020 and was eventually sold to Swan Energy in 2023, with Swan finally taking control of the yard in January last year.

Most Indian yards are building medium-sized vessels mainly general cargo vessels, only Cochin and Pipavav shipyards are currently able to build vessels of around 200,000 dwt and over, Korean and Chinese yards build vessels above that size, so Ranvah expects India to aim for the vessel sizes below that 200,000 dwt mark, with Pipavav’s investment putting it in a position to start newbuildings now.

About the Author

Nick Savvides

Europe correspondent

Experienced journalist working online, in monthly magazines and daily news coverage. Nick Savvides began his journalistic career working as a freelance from his flat in central London, and has since worked in Athens, while also writing for some major publications including The Observer, The European, Daily Express and Thomson Reuters. 

Most recently Nick joined The Loadstar as the publication’s news editor to develop the profile of the publication, increase its readership and to build a team that will market, sell and report on supply chain issues and container shipping news. 

This was a similar brief to his time at ci-online, the online publication for Containerisation International and Container News. During his time at ci-online Nich developed a team of freelancers and full-time employees increasing its readership substantially. He then moved to International Freighting Weekly, a sister publication, IFW also focused on container shipping, rail and trucking and ports. Both publications were published by Informa. 

Following his spell at Informa Nick joined Reed’s chemical reporting team, ICIS, as the chemical tanker reporter. While at ICIS he also reported on the chemical industry and spent some time on the oil & gas desk. 

Nick has also worked for a time at Lloyd’s Register, which has an energy division, and his role was writing their technical magazine, before again becoming a journalist at The Naval Architect for the Royal Institution of Naval Architects. After eight successful years at RINA, he joined Fairplay, which published a fortnightly magazine and daily news on the website.

Nick's time at Fairplay saw him win the Seahorse Club Journalist of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year 2018 awards.

After Fairplay closed, Nick joined an online US start-up called FreightWaves. 

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