A Multi-Purpose Vessel is a naval auxiliary, not a frontline combatant, and its value lies in the work it takes off the fleet's hands. Developmental radars, sonars and gun or missile systems have to be trialled and calibrated at sea before they go on a warship, and until now that meant pulling a frontline platform off operations. Samarthak gives DRDO and private defence firms a dedicated sea-going testbed. It can also launch, tow and recover the high-speed surface and aerial targets used in fleet air-defence and anti-submarine warfare live firings; act as a mothership deploying and recovering unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned surface vessels (USVs) and underwater vehicles (UUVs); carry out heavy-lift work and ocean towing of disabled warships with its deck cranes and winches; run oil-spill containment and recovery against marine pollution; and carry medical facilities and cargo for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief across the Indian Ocean Region. Every one of those tasks would otherwise consume a destroyer or frigate's time.

The delivery is a marker for two policies at once. For indigenisation, a warship designed in-house by a private Indian yard with over 75% indigenous content, ordered under the 'Buy (Indian)' category, is the shape the Aatmanirbhar Bharat push in defence has been aiming for — private shipbuilding capacity beyond the traditional defence public sector shipyards. For force structure, auxiliaries are the unglamorous multiplier: a navy with dedicated trials, training and salvage platforms can keep its combatants on combat duties. Kattupalli also builds cadet training ships and other vessels for the Navy under the same partnership, giving India a second pole of naval shipbuilding alongside Mazagon Dock, Garden Reach, Cochin Shipyard and Goa Shipyard.