Indian Navy Takes Delivery of First Indigenous Multi-Purpose Vessel Samarthak from L&T at Kattupalli
The Indian Navy has received Samarthak, its first indigenously designed and built Multi-Purpose Vessel, from Larsen & Toubro at the Kattupalli shipyard near Chennai on 27 August 2026. The delivery adds a new support platform to the fleet, with the ship intended to carry out trials, surveillance, training and humanitarian tasks rather than frontline combat duties.
Samarthak is the lead ship in a two-vessel class ordered under an ₹887-crore “Buy (Indian)” contract signed in March 2022. At more than 107 metres in length and displacing over 3,750 tonnes, the vessel has been built with more than 75 percent indigenous content. The Navy says the ship’s name means “The Proponent”, reflecting its role as a flexible enabler capable of supporting multiple missions.
Designed as a testbed and support ship
The central purpose of Samarthak is to serve as a trial and evaluation platform for next-generation indigenous weapons, sensors and other systems before they are installed on operational warships. By providing a dedicated ship for this work, the Navy expects to shorten development timelines and avoid pulling frontline vessels away from operational commitments for testing.
Its mission set goes well beyond trials. According to the Navy and L&T, the vessel is also meant for maritime surveillance and reconnaissance, offshore patrolling and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations. It can launch and recover surface and aerial targets for gunnery and anti-submarine warfare exercises, operate unmanned and remotely piloted vehicles, tow other ships, provide limited hospital support and respond to sea pollution incidents.
The ship’s modular design allows the same hull to be adapted for different roles. That approach is meant to free up destroyers, frigates and other combatants for their primary tasks while Samarthak handles support, training and evaluation functions.
Published specifications list a beam of 18.6 metres, a maximum speed of 15 knots and an endurance of about 4,500 nautical miles. The vessel accommodates 116 personnel, including eight officers. It uses a CODAD propulsion arrangement, although public sources differ slightly on the exact engine details.
How the project moved from contract to delivery
The Ministry of Defence and L&T signed the contract for the two ships on 25 March 2022. The keels for both vessels were laid on 20 March 2023, beginning the next major phase of construction. Samarthak was launched at Kattupalli on 14 October 2024 in a ceremony presided over by then Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Dinesh K. Tripathi.
The second ship of the class, Utkarsh, was launched on 14 January 2025 and is still under construction and trials. Samarthak, meanwhile, has now been handed over to the Navy after sea trials and acceptance checks. The original delivery schedule was revised, and commissioning into the fleet has not yet been announced.
The project is being highlighted as an example of private-sector participation in Indian naval shipbuilding. L&T’s Kattupalli yard, north of Chennai, carried out the design and construction work under the government’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India programmes. Officials have described the delivery as another step in the Navy’s indigenous shipbuilding journey and a sign of the growing domestic defence industrial base.
Why the Navy wanted a multi-purpose vessel
For Navy planners, the value of a ship like Samarthak lies in its ability to perform several secondary roles without consuming scarce combatant hulls. Separate platforms for trials, target launching, pollution response and disaster relief are expensive to maintain. A single modular MPV can take on many of those functions more efficiently.
The ship’s high indigenous content also matters for the wider industry. Building and integrating sensors, deck machinery, target-handling systems and command-and-control equipment on a specialised naval platform is a more demanding task than producing a standard patrol or survey vessel, and it tests the capabilities of Indian shipyards and vendors.
Samarthak is not meant to replace destroyers, frigates or corvettes. Its usefulness comes from versatility and availability: one month it can be used for weapons trials, the next for offshore patrol duties, and later for disaster-relief support after a cyclone or other emergency. That is why officials have repeatedly described it as an enabler of multiple missions.
Utkarsh is expected to follow a similar path once work and trials are completed. Together, the two vessels will provide the Navy with dedicated multi-role support platforms built in India by a private Indian shipyard to Indian specifications.
For the Navy, the delivery of Samarthak is therefore both a practical addition to operational capability and a demonstration of the growing ability to design, build and sustain specialised warships and support vessels at home.
