VISAKHAPATNAM: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh launched the first of five fleet support ships being built in India for the Navy at Hindustan Shipyard Limited in Visakhapatnam on October 6, All India Radio reported. The ship has been named Surya.
At the same ceremony, Singh laid the keel for Fleet Support Ship-5, the last of the class, and inaugurated an upgraded Slipway-4 and a 300-tonne Goliath crane at the shipyard.
Fleet support ships are tankers that replenish warships at sea with fuel, water, ammunition and stores, so that the Navy's fleet can stay out for long periods without returning to harbour. When the contract was signed, the Defence Ministry said the ships would extend the fleet's strategic reach and mobility, strengthen the Navy's blue-water capability, and could also be used to evacuate people and for humanitarian and disaster relief.
Singh said Surya would strengthen the Navy's "reach, endurance and operational effectiveness", and that the new slipway and crane would let Hindustan Shipyard take on larger shipbuilding projects.
The Defence Ministry signed the contract for five fleet support ships with Hindustan Shipyard on August 25, 2023, at an overall cost of nearly ₹19,000 crore, after the Cabinet Committee on Security approved the purchase on August 16 that year, All India Radio reported at the time. The ministry described the 44,000-tonne ships as the first of their kind to be built in India by an Indian shipyard, to an indigenous design by the shipyard's own team, and said the project would generate about 168.8 lakh man-days of employment over eight years.
The class is built partly by Larsen & Toubro, which is making two of the five ships at its Kattupalli shipyard, according to Wikipedia's record of the programme. The ships are about 223.6 metres long with a beam of 31.5 metres, displace about 43,500 tonnes by that record, and have double hulls, a top speed of 20 knots and a range of 12,000 nautical miles.
Surya's keel was laid on November 14, 2024. The keels of the second and third ships followed on March 12, 2025 and July 9, 2025. The contract set an eight-year programme, with the first ship due for delivery within four years of signing and the rest at intervals of 10 to 12 months. With Surya now in the water, one of the five has been launched and the other four are under construction.
Singh said India needs a strong and integrated maritime ecosystem to enhance its maritime power and defence capabilities, and called on the Navy, shipyards, the DRDO, academia, industry, MSMEs and start-ups to work together as one team.
India has immense potential in shipbuilding, he said, but the challenge is to turn it into capability and global competitiveness, with a focus on timely delivery, productivity, indigenous design, resilient supply chains, skilled manpower, capacity and cost. He said the Navy had repeatedly shown its capabilities in the Indian Ocean Region as a first responder and preferred security partner, in humanitarian relief, anti-piracy operations, evacuations and maritime security.
Hindustan Shipyard has served India's maritime and defence needs for more than eight decades, Singh said, and its Miniratna Category-I status, granted in 2025, reflects its turnaround and better finances.
India's defence manufacturing has moved over the past decade from dependence on imported platforms towards designing and building advanced systems at home, he said, as the country works towards becoming a developed nation by 2047.
