Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd (MDL) on Friday signed its second agreement this week to become an anchor shipyard, this time for the upcoming greenfield shipbuilding-cum-port cluster in the Dugarajapatnam area of Andhra Pradesh's Tirupati district.
Under the new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with the National Shipbuilding & Heavy Industries Park Andhra Pradesh (NSHIP-AP), a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) led by the Andhra Pradesh Maritime Board and Visakhapatnam Port Authority, for the greenfield cluster.
This comes just days after MDL became the anchor shipyard for the upcoming greenfield shipbuilding cluster in Maharashtra's Dighi.
Notably, in both Dighi and Dugarajapatnam, the MDL has agreed to invest ₹15,000 crore, with both projects set to have an annual shipbuilding capacity of 1.2 million gross tonnes (GT). The Dugarajapatnam cluster spans 3,488 acres and has around 2.1km of waterfront.
The Techno-Economic Feasibility Report (TEFR) estimates the overall value of the greenfield cluster project at about ₹38,767 crore, of which the shipyard and ship repair yard will cost about ₹29,257 crore, while the port—which will be built by the Centre—is valued at about ₹9,513 crore.
The port will be built by the Centre under the Shipbuilding Development Scheme (SbDS), which has a corpus of ₹19,989 crore, and aims to develop greenfield shipbuilding clusters, as well as to expand and modernise existing brownfield shipyards, among other things.
The SbDS is a key part of the Centre's ₹69,725 crore maritime package from September 2025, which mandates one shipbuilding cluster per state.
Both projects now mark Mazagon Dock's foray into commercial shipbuilding, alongside its core portfolio of vessels for the defence sector, and support India's larger ambitions under initiatives like the Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047 and Make in India.
"The project will also catalyse the development of a strong ancillary and marine engineering ecosystem and contribute significantly to employment generation in the state," said Captain Jagmohan (Retd), Chairman and Managing Director, MDL.
