Andhra Pradesh clears decks for new defence, warship building unit
Defence public sector undertaking (PSU) Goa Shipyard Limited will invest ₹8,000 crore to set up the facility. This will be the first time that the PSU will step out of its homebase of Goa. Andhra Pradesh’s State Investment Promotion Committee (SIPC) cleared the project at its meeting on Monday. According to sources, the company will be allotted 400 acres of land in two phases — 198 acres in the first phase and 195 acres in the second.
As per company estimates, the project is expected to generate 3,000 direct and 5,000 indirect jobs. The company has been looking at alternative locations on the east coast to expand beyond Goa. The reason is the timing of monsoons. Ship building is an open air activity and monsoons affect operations directly. A senior official told ET, “When monsoons hit Goa, the ship building activity stops. A facility on the east coast helps PSU in continuing with its activities as the timing of monsoons is different.” The preparatory phase, which will include environmental impact assessment and preparation of detailed project report, will start next month. The machinery set up will begin in October next year and the trial production by January 2028. As per company estimates, commercial production for the first phase will begin in May 2028. The second phase is slated to begin in December 2028. The company will be building ships with a length of 120 metres and a draught of more than six metres.
Goa Shipyard had initiated talks with the Andhra Pradesh government in early 2025. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the state government and the defence PSU at the two-day CII partnership summit at Visakhapatnam in November 2025. However, the scale of planned investment has increased from ₹ 1,500 crore to ₹8,000 crore.
