Military shipbuilding in the slow lane

India has 'adequate' naval ships for the region but it will need to build more and faster to sail beyond

India has a bluewater navy, which is globally present in the open waters. The country has one of the world’s longest coastlines. But to enhance its maritime power beyond the Indian Ocean region, which is its focus area, India needs to build naval ships in larger numbers and faster.  

Comparisons with China are inevitable because of strategic reasons: India has more than 130 warships and submarines, less than half China’s inventory of 250.  

The Indian Navy plans to induct more than 50 ships — under construction — over the next decade. That will mean 180 by 2035. At the same time, some old ships will be decommissioned, so the number will fall. 

Fleet size and tonnage matter but a hull count alone does not make a great navy, especially in the age of technology: Platforms and human skills also play an important role. The Titanic, one of the largest ships of the past century, with a displacement of 52,000 tonnes (when fully loaded), sank after hitting the tip of an iceberg in 1912. 

The Indian Navy’s origins lie in the East India Company’s Marines, which was founded in the colonial era 400 years ago. Today, India ranks between fifth and seventh as a global naval power. The US, China and Russia top the list, while other major navies include Japan, France and the UK

Slow shipbuilding 

India has an adequate number of naval ships in the Indian Ocean region but shipbuilding is slow, interviews suggest.   

“We have enough numbers to counter China in a war situation in the Indian Ocean today,” an Indian Navy officer said. “As a leading navy in the region, we have the capability, understand our role, and can ensure sustained presence.” 

While the Indian Navy maintains an interest in long-range surveillance, it is also prepared for close-range defence, with warships, submarines, aircraft and support vessels for operations in both deep and shallow waters. 

What kind of fleet force China (or Pakistan that is buying submarines from China) could bring to the Indian Ocean in the next 10 years is a question the Indian Navy has asked itself. For deterrence, the navy is getting more and better hardware and software —unmanned crafts, autonomous weapons, stealthy submarines, aerial surveillance and tankers. The Indian Navy is “progressively increasing” the tonnage of ships, so as to be able to carry larger weapons suites.  

The Indian Navy’s estimated water displacement is 60,000-70,000 tonnes. That figure for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is thought to be more than 100,000 tonnes.  

India commissioned almost 30 major naval assets over the past decade, including aircraft carriers, conventional and nuclear submarines, destroyers, frigates, corvettes and survey vessels. Because it takes years to build large, complex ships, the major naval assets India will commission in the next decade will include nuclear submarines, frigates, anti-submarine corvettes and shallow-water crafts, among the announced projects. Other ships will be support vessels and barges. 

India has 19 operational submarines, while China is estimated to have 60-70. China has three aircraft carriers, India has two. 

India will need at least three carrier battle groups in the future, Indian Navy chief Admiral Dinesh Tripathi said at a news conference last year.   

This year, the “acceptance of necessity” for another aircraft carrier is likely to be approved by the government, as well as for some advanced destroyers and frigates, a source said.  

China and India are classed as higher and lower middle-income countries, respectively, by the World Bank. By that standard, funds for the Indian Navy have risen. Almost 20 per cent of the defence budget of ₹6.81 trillion went to the navy last year. 

The PLAN adds, on average, five or six destroyers and frigates to its fleet annually, making it the world’s fastest-growing military wing. China’s shipbuilding industry is for civil-military use. 

China’s limitations 

Admiral Sunil Lanba (retired), former Indian Navy chief, said, “The Chinese Navy may be the largest, by number, but can the entire Chinese navy be deployed in the Indian Ocean?” At most 25 platforms can be sent through the straits and ingress routes at any one time.  

Naval power is built at the strategic and operational levels, too, Lanba said of India. Besides, China will have to look at the Western Pacific, where its main geopolitical rival, the US, remains focused.  

China will not be able to operate a carrier battle group in the Indian Ocean region at least for the next decades, said Rear Admiral Pradip Chauhan (retired), director-general, National Maritime Foundation, a security think-tank.  

“The Indian Navy is building up its order of battle. But the process feels like a slow burner because of the limited number of shipbuilding yards (in India) and how we work. The sense of urgency is just not there,” Chauhan said. “We should build more, much more, and faster, but the infrastructure is woefully inadequate.”  

The scale is different, also because land in China is government property and approvals for drydocks, for instance, are quicker. But shipbuilding has slowed in many other countries.  

For faster production, the timeline of approvals in India has been shortened by two to three years. The navy’s warship design bureau gives designs on time, the officer said. 

If India wants to rapidly increase the size of its navy, it can’t depend on state-run companies alone, but few private companies seem interested, Lanba added.  

Shipbuilding is a labour-intensive job. In India, a lot of the work is contracted to migrant workers, many of whom are from impoverished states, and get low wages, a source in a state-run shipbuilder said. Plus, there is the problem of unfavourable weather and climate — which means having to cope with high heat and humidity while welding and making fittings in an open yard or a closed space. The weather in East Asia, by contrast, is more conducive.  

If large companies do not receive orders regularly, sustaining wages becomes a problem because of high overhead costs. The 

production cycle can also be affected by supply chain issues. 

In addition, instead of shipyards, the navy liaises with original equipment manufacturers and vendors for the post-delivery work.  

“The maintenance of ships is the responsibility of the navy, and not of the shipyards, so the shipyards have neither long-standing relationships with suppliers nor negotiating power,” the source said, adding that the request for proposals (a formal tendering document) of new projects should include a provision for five-year-maintenance at the least.   

Government policy needs to change, the source said, adding that large companies are “forced” to participate in open bidding of different projects now, but the trend in advanced countries such as the US is to allow yards to specialise in making particular types of ships. 

India will not be able to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (more than 60,000 tonnes) until it has a drydock.  

“It’s not about money but the lack of awareness and experience, as a maritime nation,” Chauhan said.  

The Indian Navy has 250 aircraft and helicopters. A super carrier is able to hold more than 90 aircraft on its deck. The official asked: “But where are the indigenously built aircraft?” 

The navy is willing to buy at home instead of importing (the first four of 26 Rafale jets ordered are pending delivery in 2029) but domestic manufacturing is slow even for aircraft.  

The US Navy operates the world’s largest aircraft carriers. China aims to surpass that with its fourth carrier — a nuclear-powered ship that it has started building. Inducted in November, China’s third carrier has electromagnetic launching systems 

that allow catapult take-off of deck-based fighter jets.  

In a study for the Observer Research Foundation think-tank, Rear Admiral Monty Khanna (retired), formerly with the Indian Navy, wrote in 2024 that if China maintains its current pace of construction of between 4.5 to six nuclear submarines each year for the next 20 years, the number of nuclear boats in the PLAN inventory will swell substantially. 

China’s maritime interests are among its national security priorities, according to a Chinese government white paper last year. It’s time India paced up.