GRSE, Yantra India Launch ₹2,670 Crore Brownfield Shipbuilding & Defence Manufacturing Expansion in West Bengal
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh laid the foundation for five brownfield expansion projects of Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd. (GRSE) and Yantra India Limited (YIL) at a ceremony in Kolkata. The projects, spread across Kidderpore, Shalimar, Raichak and Ishapore, carry a combined investment of nearly ₹2,670 crore and are aimed at expanding shipbuilding and defence manufacturing capacity in West Bengal.
GRSE, a Navratna defence PSU, has signed lease agreements with Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, Kolkata (SMPK) to develop three riverside sites along the Hooghly. The largest is a 32-acre facility at Raichak, with an outlay exceeding ₹2,500 crore. It will feature a 356-metre waterfront, a 96-metre jetty, an 8-to-10-metre draught, a 200-metre dry dock, slipway, launching pad and block fabrication units, enabling construction of warships up to 200 metres and commercial vessels up to 60,000 DWT.
GRSE has also allocated about ₹100 crore to rejuvenate its four-acre Timber Pond facility at Shalimar for medium-sized shipbuilding and repair work, including restoration of a 130-metre dry dock and a new 120-metre slipway, and around ₹70 crore for a site at Kidderpore Docks for vessel repairs and construction of electric ferries.
Separately, Yantra India Limited is executing two upgrade projects worth over ₹750 crore at its Metal and Steel Factory in Ishapore. This includes a ₹277.59-crore, 3,000-tonne Heavy Duty Hydraulic Open Die Forging Press to replace an older 2,650-tonne press for producing gun barrels and ammunition components, and a ₹473.84-crore Radial Forging Plant for critical forgings.
The expansion is intended to raise GRSE's shipbuilding capacity for both naval and commercial vessels, and to strengthen domestic forging capability for defence production, under the government's Make in India programme.