Design is the DNA of shipbuilding: Why India needs to boost its vessel design ecosystem

India's shipbuilding sector is at an exciting inflection point.

Government mandates combined with international demand are driving domestic vessel orders—from PSU fleet expansions to a green ports drive and from coastal shipping growth to a revitalised naval programme.

Shipyards are receiving orders for vessel types and sizes they have not built before.

Twenty years ago, a similar boom came and went—and almost every vessel built in Indian yards during that period was designed abroad. We did not use that window to build indigenous design capability. We cannot afford the same outcome this time.

Design is not a support function—it is the foundation

Ship design is not a support service. It is not something a yard procures before the real work begins.

It is the foundation that everything else rests on—concept development, structural equipment selection, production drawings. Every equipment selection, every system integration decision flows from design.

Get it right, and the rest of the process has a chance to go well. Get it wrong, or get it from somewhere that does not understand our context, and problems compound all the way to delivery.

When a vessel is designed by an Indian design house, the intellectual property stays within the country. That is important for sovereignty: design knowledge accumulated in India stays in India, grows in India, and can be deployed again.

That is also important for the local economy. An Indian designer, working across projects over years, builds deep knowledge of Indian shipyards, Indian supply chains, and the equipment ecosystem available domestically.

That knowledge directly improves shipbuilding—vessels that are more buildable in Indian conditions, designed around equipment available here, adapted to local operating environments.

A foreign design house is working from a distance and designs to an international specification. An Indian designer designs for India, and that difference shows up in every project.

Nations that got this right did not leave it to chance

Every nation that built a globally competitive shipbuilding industry made design capability a deliberate policy priority, not an afterthought.

Governments created conditions for domestic design firms to develop real competence on real projects. Foreign knowledge was brought in, but through arrangements where domestic engineers were genuine participants.

The journey followed a clear sequence: the involvement of local designers while engaging foreign designers; policy support for local design firms; and finally, independent innovation where indigenous design became a competitive export.

In every case, design was treated as core to the national shipbuilding ambition from day one. India now has the opportunity to follow the same path, but only if design is placed at the centre of this moment, not left at the edges.

What needs to happen

India is not starting from zero. There are trained naval architects, established design firms, and real technical depth across several vessel types.

Some Indian firms are already delivering complex projects for demanding international clients. What international customers evaluate is current capability and demonstrated competence, not historical legacy.

At Vedam, we have been selected for patrol vessel design by two different foreign customers based on our engineering strengths, not decades of precedent. The capability is real and it is recognised. What is missing is equivalent confidence from domestic policy and procurement.

Indigenisation needs to be made financially attractive. For many complex vessel categories, design is still almost invariably imported, with yards making a rational short-term call on proven performance and lower first-ship risk.

Policy can change that calculus without forcing anyone's hand. A financial incentive for yards that engage Indian design partners—whether a direct subsidy, procurement weighting, or recognition under existing maritime schemes—makes the nationally beneficial choice also the commercially rational one.

Bid-stage design effort needs support. Significant engineering work happens before any contract is signed—concept designs, stability assessments, weight estimates—all at the design firm's own cost and risk.

For Indian firms investing in capability for new vessel types, this is a recurring strain that limits growth. A government-backed maritime design development fund, co-invested with industry and linked to technical milestones, can bridge this gap.

Skills also need a structured pipeline. The gap between a naval architecture degree and delivering a class-approvable production design on a live project is real, and the industry bridges it informally today.

A structured national programme, co-developed with the industry and linked to live apprenticeships, would build the pipeline the sector needs. Design depth takes years to accumulate. The programme needs to start now.

We cannot miss this window again

The boom is here. The orders are real. India has, at most, a five-year window to ensure that this wave builds design sovereignty alongside physical capacity.

Vedam started twenty years ago with no track record—just the capability and the conviction to solve design challenges.

Over those years, Vedam has designed cargo ships, research vessels, fast patrol craft, electric tugs, dredgers, FSRUs and more—built purely on engineering capability and the confidence of a handful of early customers.

Other Indian design houses carry similar stories. A historical track record is not the real measure, current capability is.

With policy support and industry confidence behind them, Indian design firms can grow much faster than they have had to on their own.

The investment required is not large, relative to what is being built. What it needs most is intent—from policy, from shipyards, from the industry—that design is not peripheral to India's shipbuilding ambition. It is the foundation of it. And foundations need to be laid first.

The author is the CEO of Vedam Design and the Secretary of the Indian Marine Designers Association (IMDA).