Garden Reach Launched Shreyas, the Navy's Third Next Generation Offshore Patrol Vessel From Its Kolkata Yard, on 10 October 2026, Three Launches in Under Five Months

Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) launched the Next Generation Offshore Patrol Vessel Shreyas at its Kolkata yard on 10 October 2026. It is the third of the four ships of this class that GRSE is building for the Indian Navy, and the third to leave the slipway in 143 days: Sanghmitra went down on 20 May, Shruti on 11 August and Shreyas on 10 October. The Ministry of Defence’s release identifies the ship as Yard 3040.

The ship is about 113 metres long and displaces about 3,000 tonnes. The ministry describes the class as indigenously designed and built.

What happened on 10 October

The Press Information Bureau (PIB), the government’s release service, says Yard 3040 was launched by Reyman Kochhar, wife of Vice Admiral Ajay Kochhar, the Vice Chief of the Naval Staff, who attended. Senior officers from the Navy, the Ministry of Defence, GRSE and industry partners were present.

The release gives the name’s meaning in Sanskrit as “best” or “most excellent”. It describes the ship as part of a class built “concurrently” at two yards, GRSE in Kolkata and Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) in Goa.

Swarajya’s report of the day names Vice Admiral Kochhar as chief guest. India Shipping News and PSU Connect report that he praised GRSE’s pace of execution and its indigenous shipbuilding capability.

Size, speed and range

Four outlets that reported the launch give the same figures for the GRSE-built ships: about 113 metres long, a beam (width) of 14.6 metres, a displacement of about 3,000 tonnes, and a top speed of 23 knots. Range is 8,500 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 14 knots. Baird Maritime, The Week, Swarajya and India Shipping News agree on these numbers. PIB’s earlier keel-laying releases give the tonnage as approximately 3,000.

The ministry lists the jobs as maritime surveillance, search and rescue, protection of offshore assets, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and anti-piracy. Swarajya and India Shipping News add mine warfare, boarding and seizure operations, special operations and out-of-area contingencies. The 2023 contract release adds counter-infiltration, anti-poaching, anti-trafficking and evacuation of civilians from danger zones.

Baird Maritime reports GRSE’s own description: bigger than the Navy’s existing offshore patrol vessels, with greater firepower. None of the launch releases or reports we opened lists the weapons fitted, so this article does not either.

Three ships, three different timelines

PIB’s keel-laying releases let you compare how long each of the three ships spent on the slipway.

The launch order does not follow the keel order. Yard 3038 had its keel laid on the same day as 3037, and the PIB releases we opened record no launch for it as of 29 October 2026. It is the remaining GRSE ship in the programme.

PIB also records that Sanghmitra was named after the daughter of King Ashoka, and that Shruti refers to the four Vedas, the foundational scriptures of the Hindu tradition. The class crest shows the Ursa Major constellation and a red and white lighthouse.

The contract behind the ships

On 30 March 2023 the Ministry of Defence signed a contract for 11 Next Generation Offshore Patrol Vessels with GSL and GRSE at a total cost of Rs 9,781 crore under its Buy (Indian-IDDM) category, which covers items indigenously designed, developed and manufactured. GSL builds seven ships and GRSE four. The ministry said the construction would generate 110 lakh man-days of work (11 million) over seven and a half years.

Goa has been launching too. GSL launched Shachi (Yard 1280), described by PIB as the first of the eleven, on 31 March 2026. It launched Yard 1283, Srishti, on 27 October 2026, two weeks after Shreyas. PIB’s Srishti release gives the name’s meaning as “creation”.

For the Navy these ships are meant to add to the existing offshore patrol vessels. PIB’s Shachi release counts those as ten.

Launched is not commissioned

Shreyas is a hull in the water, not a ship in service. The ministry’s release calls it simply Shreyas, and Baird Maritime refers to it as the future INS Shreyas.

The 2023 ministry release said deliveries would begin from September 2026. The PIB release on Shreyas gives no delivery or commissioning date, and neither do the releases for Sanghmitra, Shruti, Shachi or Srishti. As of 29 October 2026 we found no announcement that any ship of the class has been delivered.

What GRSE has on its slips

The Week and PSU Connect both report that GRSE has nine warships under construction, four of them these patrol vessels. Ships already in service are listed in our account of the Navy’s 2026 commissionings, and a private yard’s first major warship is covered in the INS Samarthak article. The Navy’s wider reach in the region is the subject of this piece on the Indian Ocean and the Navy.

The keel of Yard 3038, the one GRSE patrol vessel still to be launched, was laid on 5 November 2024, according to PIB.