Mazagon Dock moves into merchant shipbuilding with ₹15,000-crore yard in Andhra’s Dugarajapatnam
Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited has signed an MoU to build a Rs 15,000-crore shipyard in Dugarajapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. The project aims to produce large merchant vessels and is part of a broader state initiative to create a shipbuilding-cum-port cluster to boost India's global maritime standing.
Why it matters
This investment is a significant step toward India's goal of becoming a top-five global shipbuilding nation by 2047 and is expected to generate substantial employment.
Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL), the Defence Ministry’s Navratna shipbuilder, will build a shipyard at Dugarajapatnam in Tirupati district that can turn out 1.2 million gross tonnes of merchant vessels a year . It signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Friday (September 18, 2026) with the State’s National Shipbuilding and Heavy Industries Park-Andhra Pradesh (NSHIP-AP).
MDL will invest about ₹15,000 crore over five to seven years, and the project is expected to create about 45,000 direct and indirect jobs, the government said in a release. The MoU was signed at the Secretariat in the presence of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu. NSHIP-AP is a special purpose vehicle owned equally by the Andhra Pradesh Maritime Board and the Visakhapatnam Port Authority.
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