The Indian government’s push to expand indigenous defence production continues to align closely with the Make In India program, especially in the naval domain. Recent official material highlights a sustained and growing focus on heavy capital projects, including submarines, surface combatants, and associated underwater systems.
The underlying message is clear: domestic capabilities are being developed not merely to meet current needs but to enable a robust, self-reliant shipbuilding and weapons ecosystem that can support extended naval operations with reduced reliance on imports.
A December 2025 Press Information Bureau (PIB) backgrounder titled Sailing Towards Self-Reliance: The Indian Navy’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat Journey underscores the breadth of the current naval build programme. It states that, within the country, 51 large ships are under construction, with a cumulative value of around ₹90,000 crore.
Submarines are explicitly named as part of this pipeline, alongside surface combatants, indicating that India’s submarine construction and refitting ambitions sit on par with other high-end naval platforms in terms of strategic importance and industrial investment. The PIB framing is deliberately aspirational, tying manufacturing output to the broader objective of strategic autonomy in defence.
That PIB document also notes a substantial rise in naval capital expenditure over the period 2020–21 to 2025–26. Specifically, capital outlays rose from ₹49,623 crore to ₹1,03,548 crore in the later year, signalling a decisive shift toward funding more sophisticated platforms.
This increase in spending, directed toward “high-end platforms such as submarines and underwater systems”, reinforces the link between budget priorities and the growth of indigenous manufacturing capabilities. It is not merely about procuring new vessels; it is about developing the supply chains, design capabilities, and skilled workforce necessary to sustain such programmes domestically.
Nuclear submarines feature prominently in the official record, with the PIB materials indicating that these platforms are already built and commissioned within India. While the documents do not publish class-wise quantities or fixed construction timelines, the implication is that India’s nuclear propulsion and associated underwater systems are being integrated into a larger, domestically supported production framework.
This aligns with an overarching aim to evolve India into a self-sufficient producer of complex naval assets, including those with nuclear propulsion or reactor-related components, through a combination of public sector capacity and private-sector participation.
The INS Vikrant project, though technically a surface platform, further illustrates the industrial architecture now underpinning complex naval construction in India. A separate PIB backgrounder from October 2025 notes that Vikrant was produced with 76% indigenous content and relied on around 30,000 tonnes of specialty steel supplied by SAIL.
The project involved more than 550 OEMs and over 100 MSMEs, generating approximately 2,000 direct jobs and 12,500 indirect roles. Crucially, the development and production of indigenous warship-grade steel were achieved via a collaborative arrangement among the Navy, DRDO, and SAIL, highlighting the integrated, multi-organisation approach that characterises India’s Make In India naval manufacturing ecosystem.
Dec 2024 figures cited in the PIB notes indicate that 63 of the 64 warships planned for induction were being built in India, with nuclear submarines such as INS Arihant and INS Arighaat explicitly named among those being produced domestically.
This underscores the breadth of the domestic propulsion, hull design, weaponry integration, and sub-systems work that is now visible across the navy’s planned fleet. The reference to nuclear submarines within this same production system signals the scale and complexity of the ongoing industrial effort to sustain such platforms through their life cycles.
The PIB description of INS Arighaat highlights the advanced design and manufacturing technologies involved, including detailed R&D, the use of special materials, and highly skilled workmanship. It emphasises indigenous systems and equipment conceived, designed, manufactured, and integrated by Indian scientists, industry players, and naval personnel.
The note also asserts that the technological advancements achieved on Arighaat are more advanced than those on its predecessor, Arihant, pointing to a continuing evolution of domestic capabilities rather than a static state of development.
Against this backdrop, a number of Indian companies have emerged as relevant touchpoints for the submarine and broader naval build programme. Mishra Dhatu Nigam, for instance, is positioned at the base of the submarine supply chain by producing special steels, maraging steels, titanium alloys, and non-magnetic materials used in defence and nuclear applications.
Company disclosures reference naval and atomic energy establishments among key customers, and PIB documentation repeatedly links indigenous metallurgy to submarine pressure hulls and reactor-related components. This positions Mishra Dhatu Nigam as a strategic supplier within the metals complex that underpins submarine construction.
PTC Industries is another example, operating in precision casting with capabilities in titanium and superalloys suited to corrosive and high-stress marine environments. While the company’s contracts with submarine programmes may not be disclosed in detail, its core competencies align closely with material needs described in PIB documentation related to submarines and underwater systems.
The stock is noted for its performance, trading at several tens of thousands of rupees per share and exhibiting notable gains over the past year, thus reflecting market reception to the broader defence-spending narrative.
CFF Fluid Control has disclosed participation in submarine programmes, including supplies linked to Project-75, according to its prospectus and subsequent filings. Although Project-75 concerns conventional submarines, PIB materials treat submarine systems and underwater equipment as shared capability areas across submarine classes. This demonstrates how supplier ecosystems can be cross-pollinated across different submarine platforms within India’s naval portfolio, thereby broadening the business case for defence manufacturing firms.
Lloyds Engineering Works has reported naval equipment orders and collaborations tied to marine systems such as steering gear and stabilisation equipment. Filings confirm defence-linked activity, illustrating how smaller, specialised manufacturers contribute critical components to broader naval platforms. The stock price movements and trading patterns for Lloyds indicate investor interest in defence-related engineering suppliers as the government’s naval ambitions unfold.
Quest Flow Controls has disclosed purchase orders from Indian shipyards for hull valves used on submarines and warships, with Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders cited in January 2026 as a customer. The company’s market performance shows volatility, with substantial declines over the past year and several years, but it remains part of the broader defence-supportive ecosystem that enables submarine construction through critical valve and fluid control components.
Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE) sits within the mix as a major Indian shipyard that, while not constructing nuclear submarines itself, plays a pivotal role in indigenous naval construction.
The PIB documentation lists GRSE among the principal shipyards delivering surface combatants and anti-submarine platforms. This underscores the integrated nature of the naval industrial base, where yards specialising in different ship classes contribute to a common operational capability and share supply chains for underwater and surface platforms alike.
Kirloskar Brothers supplies pumps and valves for marine and nuclear applications and is named in the INS Vikrant context as an indigenous supplier. The overlap between civil nuclear standards and naval propulsion makes Kirloskar Brothers part of a narrow cohort qualified to serve both civil and defence sectors. This dual-track positioning adds resilience to domestic supply chains, especially for critical peripheral technologies such as pumping systems and valves for submarine reactors and propulsion.
Taken together, these companies illustrate a broader pattern: the Indian submarine and wider naval build programme are stimulating a diversified supplier network across metals, alloys, precision casting, fluid controls, and marine engineering. The PIB framing situates such activity within a national strategy of self-reliance, with indigenous capability development seen as essential to sustaining and expanding the navy’s future fleet.
The PIB notes also emphasise the participation of a wide range of organisations across the defence ecosystem—from the Navy itself to DRDO, SAIL, and numerous private and public sector players. This multi-institutional collaboration is a hallmark of India’s approach to achieving greater autonomy in strategic industries.
It suggests that the submarine track, like the Vikrant program before it, is not a single-project endeavour but an evolving industrial strategy designed to entrench domestic capability, nurture innovation, and develop a skilled workforce capable of sustaining increasingly complex platforms over time.
In terms of future outlook, the government’s stated objective appears to be the consolidation of a resilient, self-reliant naval industrial base that can support a full spectrum of maritime power, including submarines with advanced indigenous systems.
The evidence points to sustained capital expenditure, ongoing project pipelines, and a steady emphasis on indigenous content and capabilities. If such momentum continues, the domestic defence manufacturing ecosystem could become a more significant source of high-value employment, technological spill-overs, and export potential, reinforcing India’s strategic posture in the Indian Ocean region.
The narrative presented by official communications around India’s nuclear submarine programme and the broader naval construction drive reinforces a clear intention: to leverage Make In India as a structural pillar for defence self-reliance.
The integration of large-scale shipbuilding with specialised metallurgy, materials science, and advanced engineering signals a long-term, capability-building path rather than a series of discrete procurements. As the pipeline matures, the role of indigenous suppliers and shipyards is likely to expand further, with continued emphasis on complex, value-added components and systems that underpin the safety, reliability, and operational effectiveness of India’s nuclear submarine fleet.
PIB Press Release
