Sarbananda Sonowal: Rs 69,725 crore package to transform shipbuilding industry

Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal. File picture.

A comprehensive Rs 69,725 crore package has been approved to strengthen domestic shipbuilding capacity, maritime financing and skilling as part of measures to revamp India's shipbuilding industry, the government has said.

The package includes a Shipbuilding Financial Assistance Scheme with an outlay of Rs 24,736 crore to address cost disadvantages of Indian shipyards compared to global yards, Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal, said in Lok Sabha.

A Maritime Development Fund corpus of Rs 25,000 crore for providing long term financing support to shipbuilding and maritime sector comprising a Maritime Investment Fund of Rs 20,000 crore and an Interest Incentivisation Fund of Rs 5,000 crore is a key component of the package.

The government also approved a Shipbuilding Development Scheme (SbDS) with Rs 19,989 crore to expand output capacity to 4.5 million gross tonnage annually through greenfield clusters and brownfield expansion.

"These targets have been set to position India as a competitive global shipbuilding force in line with the vision contained in Maritime India Vision 2030 and Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047 documents," the statement from Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways said.

Policy reforms have also been undertaken to revamp the shipbuilding industry including implementation of classification of large vessels as infrastructure and demand aggregation.

Infrastructure status was notified for Indian‑flagged commercial vessels of 10,000 Gross Tonnage (GT) and above on September 19, 2025, and for vessels of 1,500 GT and above when constructed in India.

As part of demand aggregation, a fleet acquisition plan of over 400 vessels has been prepared which provides long term order visibility to the Indian shipyards.

The government has accorded in-principle approval for the development of three greenfield shipbuilding clusters at Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu under Shipbuilding Development Scheme (SbDS).

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