The Next-Generation Offshore Patrol Vessel ''(NGOPV)'' are a series of eleven

offshore patrol vessel A patrol boat (also referred to as a patrol craft, patrol ship, or patrol vessel) is a relatively small naval vessel generally designed for coastal defence, border security, or law enforcement. There are many designs for patrol boats, and th ...

planned to be built by

Goa Shipyard Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) is a public sector undertaking for defence ship building located on the West Coast of India at Vasco da Gama, Goa. It was established in 1957, originally by the colonial government of the Portuguese in India as the "E ...

(GSL) and

Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd, abbreviated as GRSE, is one of India's leading defence shipyards, located in Kolkata. It builds and repairs commercial and naval vessels. GRSE also exports the ships that the company builds. Founded ...

(GRSE) for the

Indian Navy The Indian Navy (IN) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the Navy, maritime and Amphibious warfare, amphibious branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of the Naval Staff (India), Chief ...

. The deal was signed on 30 March 2023 with the delivery of the ships is scheduled to commence from September 2026. The primary role of the vessels to maintain

's combat capability and meet various operational requirements such as

Anti piracy Anti may refer to: Arts, entertainment, media *ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival, a yearly international live-art festival held in Kuopio, Finland *Anti-ship (often shortened to just "anti"), a position held in Shipping discourse Music *Anti- ...

, Counter-Infiltration, Anti poaching, Anti trafficking, Non combatant evacuation operations,

Search and Rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

(SAR), Protection of Offshore Assets and

Mine warfare Mine warfare refers to the use of different types of explosive devices: *Land mine, a weight-triggered explosive device intended to maim or kill people or to disable or destroy vehicles * Minelaying, deployment of explosive mines at sea **Naval min ...

History

The Next-Generation Offshore Patrol Vessel project is a follow on of which was eventually cancelled due to an inordinate delay of more than 10 years. Initially, the

signed a contract for five

to be built by the erstwhile

Pipavav Shipyard Swan Defence and Heavy Industries Limited formerly known as Reliance Naval and Engineering Limited, Reliance Defence & Engineering Limited and prior to that as Pipavav Shipyard Limited (PSL) and Pipavav Defence & Offshore Engineering Company L ...

now ''( Reliance Defence and Engineering''). Numerous delays in the project, initially due to change of design partner and subsequently due to financial issues led to the cancellation of the project in October 2020. Indian Navy re-released a new RFI in 2017 for six ships which was later cleared by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) in 2018 for a price of . Later on, the number of ships to be built was increased to eleven to compensate for the time lost due to the cancelled project. The project was subjected to competitive bidding and shipyards across the country participated. Amongst the public sector participants were

Cochin Shipyard Cochin Shipyard Ltd (CSL) is the largest shipbuilding and maintenance facility in India. Cochin Shipyard is part of a line of maritime-related facilities in the port-city of Kochi, in the States and union territories of India, state of Kerala, ...

Hindustan Shipyard Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL) is a public sector undertaking shipyard located in Visakhapatnam, on the east coast of India. HSL is a major shipyard in India, with a capacity to manufacture vessels up to 80,000 deadweight tonnage (DWT). The s ...

and Mazagon Dock while

Larsen & Toubro Larsen & Toubro Limited, abbreviated as L&T, is an Indian multinational conglomerate, with interests in industrial technology, heavy industry, engineering, construction, manufacturing, power, information technology, defence and financial se ...

was the sole private bidder.

was declared the lowest bidder (L1) while

was the second lowest L2. Contract was subsequently signed with both the shipyards.

Construction

The deal for the construction of 11 ships was signed on 30 March 2023 by

Ministry of Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...

with

(GSL) and

(GRSE) for a total value of . Of the 11 ships, seven will be designed, developed and manufactured by GSL and four by GRSE. The delivery of the ships is scheduled to commence from September 2026. The order value share for the

(GSL) is while that of

(GRSE) is . The first ship is expected to be delivered within 44 months from the date of signing the contract with the final delivery to be complete within seven and half years. On the same date, MoD also ordered 13 units of

BEL Bel can mean: Mythology * Belenus or Bel, a Celtic deity * Bel (mythology), a title (meaning "lord" or "master") for various gods in Babylonian religion People * Bel (name) * Annabel Linquist, known as Bel, American artist, musician, and entrepr ...

Lynx-U2

Fire Control Radar A fire-control radar (FCR) is a radar that is designed specifically to provide information (mainly target azimuth, elevation, range and range rate) to a fire-control system in order to direct weapons such that they hit a target. They are sometim ...

worth for the NGOPV programme. On 24 February and 27 March 2024, GRSE and GSL began the construction of the first two of their respective NGOPVs with the steel cutting ceremony. On 8 February 2025, MoD placed an order for 28 BEL EON-51 FCS, worth , to complement

AK-630 The AK-630 is a Soviet Union, Soviet and Russian fully automatic naval, rotary cannon, close-in weapon system. The "630" designation refers to the weapon's six gun barrels and their 30 mm caliber. The system is mounted in an enclosed automatic ...

s onboard 11 NGOPVs and 3 Cadet Training Ships. Keel for the second and third OPV (Y1281 and Y1822) from Goa Shipyard's lot was laid at Yeoman Shipyard (YMSPL),

Ratnagiri Ratnagiri (IAST:Ratnāgirī ; �ət̪n̪aːɡiɾiː is a port city on the Arabian Sea coast in Ratnagiri District in southwestern Maharashtra, India. The district is part of Konkan division of Maharashtra. The city is known for the Hapus or ...

on 23 March 2025. The main hull blocks of the vessels would be fabricated at YMSPL's Ratnagiri facility as part of GSL’s build strategy.

Design

The ships will have a displacement of and a length of depending upon the design opted by either of the shipyard. They will have a cruising speed of with a maximum speed greater than and an operating range of at a speed of . The ships will be equipped with state of the art facility and a hangar which can accommodate one

HAL Dhruv The HAL Dhruv () is a utility helicopter designed and developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in November 1984. The helicopter first flew in 1992; its development was prolonged due to multiple factors including the Indian Army's requ ...

. The

Helipad A helipad is the landing area of a heliport, in use by helicopters, powered lift, and vertical lift aircraft to land on surface. While helicopters and powered lift aircraft are able to operate on a variety of relatively flat surfaces, a fa ...

can accommodate a helicopter of with facility to operate

UAVs An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Drone ...

. These ship will be able to perform mine warfare roles with modular payload, presumably by the usage of UUVs and autonomous mine laying vehicles. The ship would be equipped with light weapons like 76mm main cannon along with

CIWS A close-in weapon system (CIWS ) is a point-defense weapon system for detecting and destroying short-range incoming missiles and enemy aircraft which have penetrated the outer defenses, typically mounted on a naval ship. Nearly all classes of ...

systems and counter-measure system like Kavach decoy launchers and Maareech torpedo-countermeasure systems. The CIWS will be partnered with EON-51 FCS, an electro optical fire-control system capable of search, detection and classification of targets by employing devices like Electro Optical and Thermal Imagers. The ship will have the ability to store Shyena torpedoes for helicopter.

Ships of the class

References

{{Ship classes of the Indian Navy Patrol vessels of the Indian Navy Patrol ship classes Ships built in India Proposed ships

History

Construction

Design

Ships of the class

See also

References