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Samarthak, the first Multi-Purpose Vessel (MPV) built by Larsen & Toubro Ltd at Kattupalli, was delivered to the Indian Navy on 27 August 2026.
The ship carries over 75 per cent indigenous content and has been conceived primarily as a versatile trial and evaluation platform for naval weapons and sensors.
It is also engineered for maritime surveillance and reconnaissance, offshore patrolling and support to Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief operations; the name 'Samarthak' means 'The Proponent'.
A Multi-Purpose Vessel is not a combatant. It is a support ship designed so that one hull can be re-tasked: on one deployment it acts as a trial and evaluation platform, carrying weapons and sensors still under development to sea and providing the towing, target-handling and recovery services those trials need; on another it patrols offshore or carries relief stores after a cyclone. Navies build such ships because dedicating a frontline destroyer to trials or to disaster relief is expensive and takes a combatant off the line. The release also illustrates the sequence a warship passes through, which is regularly confused in exams: keel laying, when construction formally begins; launch, when the hull enters the water and the ship is named; delivery or handing over, when the shipyard transfers the completed ship to the Navy after trials; and finally commissioning, when the ship formally enters naval service and only from which point it carries the prefix INS, Indian Naval Ship. Samarthak has reached delivery, so it does not yet carry the INS prefix.
Simple Analogy: Delivery is collecting the keys from the dealer. Commissioning is the registration that lets the vehicle onto the road under its official number.
The Ministry of Defence signs a contract with L&T for two Multi-Purpose Vessels, valued at about Rs 887 crore.
Keel laying of both ships - Yard 18001, Samarthak, and Yard 18002, Utkarsh - at L&T Shipyard, Kattupalli.
Samarthak, the first ship of the project, is launched at Kattupalli.
The second vessel, Utkarsh, is launched.
Samarthak is delivered to the Indian Navy with over 75 per cent indigenous content.
The private shipyard that built both Multi-Purpose Vessels. Its presence in a naval programme illustrates the widening of warship construction beyond the defence shipyards to private industry.
The Indian Navy's in-house design organisation, responsible for indigenous warship design - the reason a large share of the fleet is described as indigenously designed as well as indigenously built.
The principal public sector shipyards for the Navy's frontline platforms - submarines and destroyers at Mazagon, frigates and corvettes at GRSE, aircraft carriers and support vessels at Cochin Shipyard.
Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief is a stated role of this vessel and a standing element of India's position as a first responder in the Indian Ocean Region, seen in operations after cyclones and tsunamis.
The 'over 75 per cent indigenous content' figure connects to the positive indigenisation lists and to the indigenous content thresholds written into defence acquisition rules.
A private yard delivering a naval vessel is part of the same policy direction as the corporatisation of the Ordnance Factory Board and the opening of defence manufacturing to Indian private industry.
The INS prefix, awarded on commissioning, is a recurring static-GK point; before 1950 Indian naval ships carried the prefix HMIS.
GS Paper 3 > Security > Defence Indigenisation
General Awareness > Defence and Current Affairs
CDS/AFCAT/NDA General Knowledge > Indian Navy
General Awareness > Current Affairs
First-of-class inductions and indigenous shipbuilding milestones are asked almost every year in CDS, NDA and SSC General Awareness, and occasionally in UPSC Prelims.
A naval support ship built to be re-tasked across roles - trials and evaluation, target handling and towing, surveillance, offshore patrol and disaster relief - rather than optimised for one.
Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief - naval operations delivering relief, evacuation and medical support after disasters, a standing Indian Navy role in the Indian Ocean Region.
The proportion of a platform's value sourced from within India; Samarthak is stated to exceed 75 per cent.
Indian Naval Ship - the prefix a vessel carries only after it is formally commissioned, not on delivery. Before 1950 Indian ships used the prefix HMIS.
The ceremony marking the formal start of a ship's construction, when the first major structural section is laid down.