The city-headquartered defence public sector undertaking, Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE), plans to expand outside Calcutta for a greenfield shipbuilding plant amid rising demand in both the defence and commercial sectors in India and export markets.
GRSE expanded its capability to construct 24 ships concurrently from 20 earlier in 2024. The company plans to revive some of its defunct facilities and, through the long-term lease of dry docks from other agencies, plans to expand its shipbuilding capacity to 28 by the end of 2025.
“With the current capacity and even if we expand within Calcutta, we still will not be able to meet the demand that is going to come in the next five to ten years. So we need to expand beyond Calcutta. We have identified locations both on the east and west coasts. We have not taken a final call as to where we will be going. But that process is on and within the next six months we will decide,” Commodore P R Hari, chairman and managing director, GRSE, told The Telegraph on the sidelines of an Indian Chamber of Commerce organised event on
Saturday.
Growing orderbook
As of March 31, 2025, GRSE’s orderbook stood at ₹22,680 crore despite the company having clocked a record revenue of ₹5075 crore in FY25.
“If everything goes well, the plan is to add another ₹25,000 crore this fiscal in addition to what we already have. I want to end the fiscal year with at least a ₹40000 crore order book. It will be a mix of both commercial and defence,” CMD GRSE said.
Bengal interest
Bengal government is keen to attract investment in the defence manufacturing sector and is open to the idea of setting up a defence-focused industrial park in the state.
“We have around 200 industrial parks, and we have the scope for more. In case there is a requirement, we can develop a defence-focused industrial park and work with the major players in the defence sector,” said the state’s principal secretary for MSME and textiles, Rajesh Pandey, on Saturday while highlighting Bengal’s large base of small and medium enterprises.
