India commissions INS Samarthak, the first major warship built by a private yard for its navy

The Indian Navy commissioned INS Samarthak, its first multi-purpose vessel, at the INS Kadamba naval base in Karwar, Karnataka, on 16 October 2026. Vice-President C.P. Radhakrishnan presided over the ceremony, which was attended by the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Krishna Swaminathan. The ship was built by Larsen and Toubro (L&T) at its Kattupalli shipyard in Tamil Nadu.

Swaminathan said Samarthak was the first major warship contracted to and built by a private shipyard to be commissioned into the Indian Navy. He said the vessel has more than 75 percent indigenous content and was designed, engineered and built entirely in-house at L&T's warship design centre and yard.

At roughly 107 metres long, the ship is conceived mainly as a trials and evaluation platform for weapons, radars and sensors under development by Indian industry. The navy chief said it carries a dynamic positioning system and can launch and recover the targets used in warship exercises at sea, and it is also meant to act as a mothership for uncrewed and autonomous systems. Maritime surveillance, offshore patrol and disaster relief are secondary roles.

Swaminathan said Samarthak also has heavy-towing gear, medical facilities and firefighting equipment to help ships in distress, and could support non-combatant evacuations. Its endurance would let it sustain other ships across dispersed areas for long periods. Shortening the journey from prototype to production was critical to keeping an operational edge at sea, he said, and the ship would help turn emerging technologies into usable capability.

The admiral also struck a cautious note, telling the audience that lessons from the build should be used to improve construction quality and cut timelines on future ships, because even a successful first effort offers pointers for improvement.

Radhakrishnan used the ceremony to stress Karwar's strategic value, citing its deep natural harbour and its position on the Arabian Sea. He said the Project Seabird expansion of the base would allow more ships and submarines to be stationed there. The new ship is commanded by Commander Sushil Kumar Singh, and L&T's shipbuilding head, retired Rear Admiral G.K. Harish, attended the event.

L&T announced the ship's delivery from Kattupalli at the start of September, describing it as a first-of-class vessel. The yard is now building a second multi-purpose vessel and three cadet training ships for the navy, according to the company.

A dedicated trials hull is a practical answer to a problem shared by many Indo-Pacific navies, including Taiwan's, that are trying to field more locally made weapons: testing new systems without pulling frontline warships away from operations. India's choice to give that job to a private yard also signals how far New Delhi wants commercial shipbuilders to share the naval workload with state-owned yards.